Seeds of Time
by andrewjameswilliams
Summary: AU. Xander returns from his road trip deeply changed and carrying a horrific warning for the future. Can the Scoobies save humanity and the Earth against enemies of both the supernatural and the alien kind? Or is the world doomed?
1. Chapter 1

**Seeds of Time**

**Disclaimer: I unfortunately do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own amusement. Sadly Buffy: The Vampire Slayer remains the property of Mutant Enemy Productions and Robotech remains the property of Harmony Gold – thus I am merely borrowing the characters and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result please keep the lawyers firmly of a leash.**

**Authors Note: This is kind of an AU crossover/fusion story between Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Robotech. Updates will be extremely few and far between, as I will be focusing more on my other works like Second Chances, Pioneers Dawn and This Isn't Kansas so I don't want to hear any griping about another new story. I just thought I'd better share the first chapter with you after it's been sat on my hard drive completed since before Christmas.**

**Buffy story events begin during the Fourth Season premiere episode The Freshmen.**

**I would also like to personally thank by Bob Regent and Cyclone for all the help they've given me during this stories development, both as idea sounding boards and as beta readers.**

* * *

_**Chapter One**_

Xander Harris slipped easily into the Bronze, a cautious eye open as always for any sign of a vampire hiding admit the crowd, which there usually was since the Bronze was a favourite hunting ground for younger looking vamps. For once there were none. Which probably meant that the summer lull was still in effect alongside the fact that the Sunnydale vampire community had taken some savage losses during the battle with the late, and very unlamented, Mayor Richard Wilkins and would still be rebuilding its numbers. So he let himself relax somewhat, though after his experience on his road trip from hell, after everything he'd seen and experienced, he never let himself relax completely anymore.

He was just about to make his way through the crowd of slowly dancing teenagers to the bar, he really needed a coke or something, when he saw her. Buffy was wandering through the crowds looking strangely melancholy about something. A quick glance around showed him that there was no sign of Oz, Willow or even Deadboy – though the latter wasn't surprising as he faintly recalled Angel saying he was going to head to LA after the defeat of Wilkins – the blond-haired Slayer was very much on her own her tonight. On her own and very much down in the doldrums by the looks of things.

A concerned frown appeared on his face as he changed direction completely and moved to intercept her. It had been so long since he'd seen her and he wanted to know just what it was that seemed to have Buffy so depressed. Within moments he was standing behind Buffy, who seemed completely unaware of his presence as she looked around with a sad, almost wistful look on her face. Which meant he had the very rare opportunity to surprise the distracted blond bombshell of a Slayer.

"The whole world in front of her," he said the sudden sound of his voice making Buffy visibly jump with surprise, grinning at his success he continued "and she comes back to this dive."

"Xander," Buffy exclaimed spinning around to see one of her best friends standing behind her – a familiar cheeky grin on his face. Without hesitation, and with a laugh of pure joy, she reached out and pulled him into a hug as she'd really missed him – and his infectious good humour – over the last few months. A slight frown appeared on her face as she abruptly became aware that he'd put on some weight while he was away, the muscles on the arms that wrapped around her returning the hug felt corded and really hard. Not to mention the musculature she could feel through the fabric of his shirt. _He must have been doing some serious working out on his road trip,_ she thought.

"Hey Buff," Xander replied returning the hug.

"When did you get back," Buffy asked pulling back and immediately noticing some distinct changes in her best male friend's appearance and posture. Not only was he noticeably bigger, his shoulders broader, but he was standing completely upright instead of his normal slouch, standing in a posture that almost screamed military. Plus his hair was cut shorter and styled differently. But the biggest change was in his eyes, they were harder than she remembered and his face now that she looked at it seemed somehow older. Plus he'd somehow gained a well healed, but at the same time nasty looking, scar above his left eyebrow that the Slayer part of her said could only have come from a glancing hit with a blade or spike of some sort. A scar that hadn't been there before. _What has he been up to on his road trip,_ she thought, _if he's been hunting demons without backup then we will be so having words!_

"A few days," Xander admitted.

Buffy punched him – lightly of course – on the shoulder in response. "Freak of nature," she replied smirking and deciding not to call him on the changes she'd noted, there would be time for that later when she had Willow as back up, as while Xander could be a stubborn mule with her - not telling her anything if he didn't want to - he had no chance against Willow's infamous resolve face, she could get answers out of him when nobody else could. Right now she just settled for the fact that he was back. "Why didn't you call me? I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Buff," Xander answered, "but you were getting ready for college and I didn't want to distract you. Besides I was looking for a place to live." At the look Buffy shot him he explained. "My folks wanted me to move into the basement and pay them rent. But I thought screw that. If I've got to pay rent I'd rather do it on my own place."

"Those asses," Buffy muttered, "so you found somewhere or are you still looking? If you are I know mom would let you stay in her spare bedroom. I think she'd welcome the company."

"I appreciate the offer Buff but I've already found somewhere. Just moved into one of the new one bed apartments on Castle Street. I still need to buy some stuff but it's already starting to feel like home. You can come around in a few days to see it if you want."

Buffy smiled. "I'm happy for you and I'll take you up on that offer," she replied, "so tell me about your trip where'd you go? What did you see?"

"A lot of places and I saw quite a bit," Xander replied evasively. He didn't want to tell too much of what he knew, where he'd been and what he experienced on his 'road trip' yet and certainly not here. That would have to wait until he could get all the Scooby gang together in one place and then tell them and show them the proof he had to back it up. Seeing that Buffy was about to press for details he decided to change the topic. "So where's Willow and Oz? How's college?"

Buffy frowned at the delaying tactic but decided not to call Xander on it for now at least. _Another thing to question him about later and bring the big guns of Willow's resolve face out for_, she thought. "It's okay," she said mechanically.

A raised eyebrow was the response she got. "Okay once more with even less feeling," Xander replied looking at her with a very pointed look.

_Busted,_ Buffy thought with a mental sigh. Xander could always see through her like that. "No… no it's great," she tried to reassure him as he led her to one of the few unoccupied couches, allowing them to sit. "Willow's all excited and Oz has this really cool house off campus with the band. Don't worry I already checked it out to make sure they were ready for… that time of the month."

Before finding out that Eddie had disappeared she'd gone over there at Oz's behest just to make sure they had the cage set up properly in the basement ready for his next werewolf transformation – after all if she as the Slayer couldn't get out the cage without being let out then there was no way Wolf-Oz would either – as the full moon was only a week away. It had been perfect the Dingoes were well used to Oz's lycanthropy by now and knew how to handle it, which was one less thing for her to worry about.

"And you're sitting here alone at the Bronze, looking like someone just diagnosed you with cancer of the puppy," Xander pointed out, "come on Buff what's the matter?"

Buffy sighed softly. "It's just there's this vampire," she admitted, "she took me down and I don't know how to stop her."

"So where's the gang? Avengers assemble! Let's get it going!"

"No I don't want to bother them. I mean they're just starting college, they don't need this."

"Okay Buff we'll deal with it ourselves," Xander replied. "I've got a couple of new toys that should make taking this bitch down quite easy."

Buffy looked down, even as the Slayer in her sat up at the mention of new toys to use against vampires. Toys which would have to be weapons. "But what if I can't cut it," she said softly.

Xander raised an eyebrow. "Can't cut what! Slaying?"

Buffy nodded. "Slaying, everything."

Xander sighed. _Oh for crying out loud,_ he thought. It was clear that being defeated by this particular vampiress had deeply rattled Buffy, she wasn't used to losing confrontations with vampires, but this was ridiculous. "You can do it," he said. "You're Buffy."

"Yeah, maybe in high school I was Buffy."

"And now you're in college you're someone else? I don't buy it Buffy," Xander replied before getting up and moving to go onto his knees in front of Buffy, before gently taking her hands. "Buffy, I've gone through some fairly dark times in my life, faced some scary things. Let me tell you something, when it's dark and I'm all alone and I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?' You're my hero. Ok, sometimes when it's dark and I'm all alone I think, 'What is Buffy wearing?'"

Buffy chuckled slightly at that. "Can we make it that that's something you never tell me about," she asked.

"Deal," Xander replied standing up and offering a hand. "Now let's go see about putting this bitch in the ground. What do you say?"

"I say," Buffy replied taking the offered hand and letting Xander pull her to her feet. "I say thank you."

Xander smiled. "Okay so what do we do first?" he asked.

"First we need to find her. She and her little gang of fellow vamps have been feeding on the freshmen at UC Sunnydale," Buffy replied, "feeding then stealing from them. They stole my stuff from me," she added with a growl annoyance and determination to dust that bitch Sunday and her whole crew replacing her previous depression over being defeated. For the few seconds it would take to turn to dust Sunday would regret crossing swords with her. "Which means they have to have a nest either on or close to campus. We should check the records at the admin offices to see if we can pick up some clues from there."

"It's as good a place as any to start," Xander agreed. "Alright come on, we've got a fang face to find."

Without waiting for a response he turned and began to walk out of the Bronze. Buffy followed having to hurry slightly to keep up with Xander's longer strides. In moments they were both stepping out of the nightclub and out into the surprisingly cool Californian night. To Buffy's surprise Xander picked up his pace somewhat as he turned and started leading the way towards the car park.

"Xander slow down," she complained as she almost had to run a bit to keep up with him.

"Sorry, Buffy," Xander replied reducing his pace a bit, he hadn't realised he'd been almost at a brisk marching pace. _Going to have to watch that,_ he thought. Once Buffy was standing by his side he resumed his journey to the car park, whereupon he headed towards the area where motorbikes were kept.

"I thought you had a car," Buffy noted as she followed Xander.

"I did but I lost it," Xander replied coming to a stop by an incredibly sleek, high tech looking motorcycle. Upon the sight of it Buffy whistled impressed, something in its sleek lines hinted at an incredible amount of contained power. "Beauty isn't she," he commented.

"Hell yeah. What is it called?" Buffy asked.

"A Cyclone," Xander replied, retrieving a helmet from one of the boxes attached to the side and slipping it on. "Get on," he said to Buffy as he climbed on. Buffy blinked but followed sitting down behind Xander and wrapping her arms around him. The moment she did so Xander started the bike up, the engine coming to life with an odd rumbling humming sound instead of the deep throaty roar of the internal combustion engine Buffy would have expected it to have.

_That's wiggy,_ she thought as Xander kicked up the pedal the bike and been resting on and manoeuvred the bike out of the parking bay. Within moments they were out in the street and accelerating towards the campus. _This is awesome,_ Buffy thought as the streets of Sunnydale turned into a slipstream blur of shapes, colours and shadows as they powered down the roads at what had to be at least eighty miles an hour. Buffy let herself relax and put her chin on Xander's shoulder, she'd forgotten how much fun it was riding a motorbike as the last time she'd still been living in LA and Pike had started giving her a lift around on his bike – especially after what happened with the Master Vampire Lothos and his coven at Hemery High.

Huh now that she thought about it there were a lot of similarities between Xander and Pike. Both hadn't hesitated to help her in her Slayer duties as soon as they'd become aware of her calling. Both had lost someone they considered a very close friend to vampires, said friend being turned into a vampire and forcing both to dust him, quite early on. Both had stuck by her even when she'd tried pushing them away, though Pike in the end had left feeling he was too much a hindrance, from the slaying. The difference though was Xander was unquestionably a better fighter than Pike had been, plus he'd made it clear that even if she pushed him out the Scoobies he'd keep fighting the darkness regardless of what she said. Plus she had to admit the knowledge and skills from his soldier possession during that infamous Halloween had on half come in handy both against the Judge and a post-ascension Mayor Wilkins.

She became so lost in thinking about the similarities and differences between Xander Harris and Oliver Pike that she didn't notice them pulling up outside the main administration building of the university campus. At least till the feel of the wind rustling her hair disappeared. Mentally she shook herself out of fugue state she'd descended into and climbed off the bike, giving it a wistful look as she did so as it was an incredibly sweet ride. _I'll have to get Xander to give me rides on it more often,_ she thought watching as Xander got off the bike himself flicking a few switches as he did so before deploying the pedal.

"Ah where are the keys," she asked suddenly noticing the Cyclone had no keys.

"There aren't any," Xander replied, "the starter is completely electronic. The security system built into the bike also means that only an authorised rider can start it up." _Well unless the Cyclone's in storage mode,_ he thought recalling some of the things he'd learned about Cyclones, _then anyone can start one up if they know how… at least till you configure the starter to only accept a certain rider._

"Wow," Buffy answered watching as Xander slipped his helmet off and put it in the bag it had come out of. "The offices are this way," she said gesturing towards the entrance to the admin building. Xander nodded and gestured for her to take the lead as she knew the campus a little better than he did – he'd never been here before after all and had only been able to find the admin building by following a few road signs. Buffy nodded back in acknowledgement before, without any further hesitation, beginning to lead the way into the building, with Xander following a few paces behind her.

* * *

**Twenty Minutes Later**

Buffy frowned as she carefully studied the records being displayed on the computer screen, while she wasn't a whizz with computers like Willow was she knew enough to work this one properly. The screen was currently showing a full list of the students who'd disappeared after leaving notes in their dorm rooms saying they couldn't handle the stresses of college life. The list was collated to show those students who had genuinely left and arrived home and those who had simply disappeared and were listed only as missing.

There was a clear pattern here. "There are only a few disappearances that cannot be accounted for afterwards," she said. "Not enough to raise red flags, Sunday is obvious being very clever only taking a few to avoid gaining attention to her activities before now."

"When did the disappearances start," Xander asked from where he was standing at another desk reviewing some newspapers they'd found stacked in one of the file draws. He had a feeling he knew where the vamps were hiding from two of the articles but he needed the right answer from Buffy to confirm it.

Buffy quickly input a query, the result flashing up immediately on the screen. "They weren't too common before 1981," she replied.

Xander smiled. "Bingo," he said picking up two of the papers. "Check this out," he added pointing to the older of the two. Buffy immediately picked it up and scanned the indicated article.

"Psi Theta fraternity house loses its charter," she read aloud, "house to be closed for renovation."

"Now look at this one," Xander replied handing her a paper dated for three months ago just before Mayor Wilkins ascended into an Olvikan – and had been promptly blown to bits by them with Sunnydale High being unfortunate collateral damage.

"Former Psi Theta fraternity house lies empty and dormant while zoning issues drag on before the city council," Buff read aloud before smiling. She recognised this tactic as they'd both seen it before, vampires often took up lodgings in old abandoned buildings and if they were there awhile then said buildings tended to get wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape by the Wilkins administration. Though things were starting to improve at City Hall now that Wilkins was dead as many of his cohorts had died with or shortly after him, apparently there had been a number of arrangements involving magic in them that had been literally annulled the moment Wilkins died, but it would still be months or years before all the 'vampire ass covering' Wilkins had done was undone – if it ever was. "We got a winner," she said her smile turning into a predatory grin as the Slayer in her anticipated vengeance against the vampiress who'd humiliated her so earlier this evening.

"You up for a little reconnaissance mission Buff," Xander asked.

Buffy's grin turned into a look of confusion. "You mean where we paint pictures and stuff," she asked.

Inwardly Xander groaned and resisted, just, the impulse to shake his head in exasperation. Buffy could be so dense at times, really living up to the 'dumb' blond stereotype, often on purpose or so he believed. "No, that was the Renaissance," he replied.

"Oh," Buffy answered blushing slightly in embarrassment, grateful that Giles and Willow weren't here to see her make that faux pau both the ex-Watcher and the redheaded budding witch would have been most annoyed with her. "Sorry it's been a very long day."

"Come on," Xander said before leading the way out, Buffy hurrying after him more than ready to kick some fang face butt if Sunday and her minions were indeed hiding in the old fraternity house.

* * *

A few minutes later, she was once again climbing off the back of Xander's bike. The surprisingly quiet engine allowing them to get much closer to the boarded up, derelict looking building than they otherwise would have been able to on such a vehicle without alerting any vamps inside that company was potentially coming. She was about to start for the side of the building, to climb up to the roof to glance through the skylight that all the frat houses in the complex had, when Xander spoke from behind her.

"Buffy," he said the tone of his voice making her turn around. To see Xander offering some kind of knife to her. "Take this," he said, "I don't have a stake with me but this should help."

"Thanks," Buffy replied accepting the knife and frowning. It didn't feel like it was made of metal, the blade was too smooth and gleamed wrong in the light, it also seemed oddly blunt. And was that a tiny button built into the hilt? "What kind of blade is this?"

"It's called a vibroblade," Xander replied, "press the button."

Buffy did so and the blade immediately began emitting a faint but extremely dangerous buzzing sound and her Slayer senses picked up that it was now vibrating hard in her hand. She looked at Xander questioningly.

"It's now vibrating at a level that means the blade can cut through just about anything," Xander explained. "Should be easily able to cut off a vamps hand and probably even their heads if they get in too close."

Buffy looked back down at the knife and made a few experimental swings with it, it felt good in her hand not as good as a stake but damned close. "I like it," she said looking back up at Xander as she pressed the button again which stopped the blade vibrating. "As much as I like the new toy where'd you get it," she asked curious.

"Same place I got the Cyclone," Xander replied. "And that's a…"

"…long story," Buffy finished for him before slipping the blade into her pocket. "Alright let's go check this place out."

Without waiting for a response she climbed up the closest drainpipe to the roof. Xander followed but more cautiously just in case the somewhat rusted cast metal drainpipe buckled under his considerably greater body weight. By the time he reached the roof Buffy had already approached the skylight, brushing a few dead leaves away so she could look down into the lobby of the former frat house.

"Score," she said spying Sunday and her little gaggle of minions inside. Her grin of triumph at finding them turned into an annoyed scowl as she observed Sunday holding up one of her favourite skirts. "Oh that's my skirt you're never going to fit into it with those hips," she said, "we found them. I can see most of my stuff but I can't see my weapons chest. They must have left it back in the dorm."

"I can go and check," Xander replied knowing why she wanted the weapons chest, or at least some of the weapons from it. The vibroblade knife he'd given her was only a last resort weapon after all and not really something to take vampires on with if it could be avoided.

"Go. I'll keep an eye on this bunch," Buffy acknowledged. "If my weapons chest isn't there then Willow will have a few hidden in her room. My rooms 214 on the second floor, Willows is 265 on the same floor."

"I'll be as quick as I can," Xander replied before climbing back down the drainpipe.

As her best male friend disappeared Buffy turned her full attention back to watching the vampires. Just in time to see the long haired male vamp pull a familiar stuffed white pig from one of her cases. "Mr Gordo," she growled, enraged that the vamps were touching her favourite childhood teddy her rage only grew as the vamps began to chuck him back and forth amongst themselves laughing and joking the whole time. _Oh you're all going down for that,_ she thought as even Angelus had known better than to mess with Mr Gordo.

She began so annoyed that she didn't notice that she was putting increasing pressure on the dirty glass of the skylight. At least till with a crash the glass shattered and she fell through landing hard on the floor two stories below before she could even begin to react. The suddenness and violence of her appearance momentarily stunning Sunday and her crew into silence.

"Unh," she groaned as she got her wits back, before looking up to see the shocked look on Sunday's face morphing into one of evil anticipation. _Oh crap,_ she thought.

* * *

Xander was just about to put his helmet back on to drive the short distance to the dorm areas of the campus when the sound of breaking glass from the direction of the frat house turned vampire nest caught his attention. _Great something did have to go wrong didn't it,_ he thought knowing what had most likely happened. Buffy had leant too hard on the skylight glass causing it to shatter, as having been abandoned for the better part of twenty years the buildings windows wouldn't have been upgraded to double glazing, which would have sent the Slayer crashing to the floor right into the middle of the vampires.

Knowing he couldn't leave now, Buffy had already lost to this particular bunch of vamps once tonight and it was unlikely they would refrain from killing her a second time. He had to act now, even if that meant revealing more of what had happened, what he'd gained over the summer, to Buffy sooner than he would have liked. Deciding there was no time to get into body armour he quickly opened one of the smaller side bags and withdrew a sleek metallic pistol.

Thumbing the activation switch he turned around and ran up to the boarded up door of the former Psi Theta house, the weapon in his hand vibrating as its pre-fire chamber filled with energy from the capacitor in the handgrip. He wasn't surprised to find that the door was locked though it was obviously weak as a few kicks snapped the locking bar and sent the door flying open. He quickly charged in…

… just as a male vampire with long brownish-blond hair was turning towards him, attention obviously drawn by the sound of the door slamming open. Without hesitation he pointed his weapon at the vamp and fired sending a coruscating blue-white beam of energy smashing into the torso of the demonically reanimated corpse. Immediately the vampire screamed in a combination of surprise and pain as the laser drilled into its body before erupting into flames as the searing heat of the beam instantly set clothes and undead flesh alight. A moment later he crumbled outline imploding into fiery dust that collapsed into the floor.

Even as the first vampire dissolved into oblivion Xander targeted and fired on the next two vamps in rapid succession. Both vamps, one male with short black hair and one a female with red hair a few shades darker than Willows, like the first screamed in pain and surprise even as they burst into flames. Only two vamps remained, one another male who looked like he was about to wet himself in fear the other a taller blond haired female who'd been about to attack Buffy but who was now gaping in shock at the sudden death of three of her fellow fang faces in less than a minute.

It proved to be a fatal mistake. Shaking off her own shock at the sudden destruction of three vampires, the manner of their destruction further reinforcing the need to have that conversation with Xander about his road trip, Buffy attacked Sunday delivering a round house punch right to the face. Sunday flew back from the force of impact, crashing into a pile of stuff and becoming instantly buried under nearly two decades of accumulated possessions and detritus. Not about to give the vampiress time to recover Buffy picked a wooden tennis racket up off the floor and snapped the head off turning the handle and shaft into a crude, but effective, stake.

As she heard the snap-hiss of the energy beam from Xander's sci-fi pistol lash out again, and the following scream of pain and terror from the last minion as he burst into flames, Buffy charged forward. She reached Sunday just as the vampiress, face now fully vamped out in a combination of pain and fury, started to stand up shoving the debris aside angrily. Only for Buffy to quickly deliver a devastating snap kick to her face that sent the vamp crashing to the floor again.

"You know in about the three seconds it will take you to turn to dust," Buffy said conversationally as she dropped to her knee's straddling Sunday to prevent the dazed fang face getting up again. "I think you'll conclude that your fatal mistake was touching my stuff," she finished before driving the makeshift stake down into Sunday's heart.

"You okay, Buff," Xander asked as with the familiar eerie scream of a vanquished demon Sunday exploded into a plume of dust.

"I'm fine," Buffy replied standing up and brushing the grimy, grey dust that had once been Sunday off her clothes before turning to look at Xander. And the pistol he was still holding but which wasn't thankfully trained on her. "What is that?"

"This," Xander replied holding up the pistol, "it's a SAL-9 Laser Pistol. And before you ask I got it at the same place as everything else."

"We so need to have that conversation," Buffy said.

"We do," Xander agreed. "But it's a very long, complex and sometimes painful story that I really only want to tell once – and that's going to be hard enough. Thus I would prefer to tell the entire gang at once as its going to take all of us to stop it."

"Stop what?" Buffy asked as she felt what she could only describe as a coldness like liquid nitrogen run down her spine at the look on Xander's handsome face. A look of someone who was burdened by a terrible knowledge, a knowledge he couldn't, and wouldn't even if he could as it wasn't in his nature, escape from.

"What else? The end of the world."

"Again?"

At the long suffering and somewhat exasperated tone in Buffy's response Xander couldn't help but laugh. It was true that they'd faced numerous attempts to bring about the apocalypse and destroy the world over the last few years. Faced and defeated them, sometimes by the very skin of their teeth, all. But this was different, this time he'd seen the worlds end and the incredible sequence of events that had led up to the end of those who could have stopped it decades before the event itself took place.

"Yes again. Unfortunately this time it does happen and the world gets pulled into hell or so close to it that it doesn't matter," Xander replied. "It happens because the ones who could have prevented it, could have stopped them, were all dead by then and had been for a long time."

"Who was it and who was dead," Buffy asked hoping to get a little bit of information that she could tell Giles and the others that would convince them whatever it was that Xander had to tell them, whatever had happened to him on his road trip, was something they all needed to hear a.s.a.p. She found that she already believed him, the things he'd shown her and the look in his eyes being more than enough to convince her that he was telling the truth and that something horrible was going to bring about the end of the world.

Xander sighed and decided to give Buffy a little bit of information. "December 17th 2044," he said, "the inactive Hellmouth currently beneath the town of Yelizovo on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula will open as a result of the dimensional barrier being weakened. An army of extremely powerful demons led by some of the weaker members of the Old Ones will come through. They'll use some pretty powerful demonic magic to widen the breach they'll cause allowing the rest of the Old Ones to return."

Buffy paled at that announcement. "What about the Slayer surely whoever succeeds me or Faith as Slayer would stop them," she said.

"They would have but by then the Slayer was dead, Buffy. In fact all the Slayers were dead, the entire line destroyed."

"What how?" Buffy demanded to know horrified at the prospect that the line of Slayers, the line that had protected the world from the vampires, demons and forces of darkness for thousands of years, would end.

"That's part of the longer story, Buffy," Xander replied, "but suffice to say for now we have to find a way to stop it, stop the ending of the Slayer line so that there will still be a Slayer to stop the Old Ones vanguard and close the Hellmouth again before the main force of demons, and the Old Ones themselves, come through."

"I'll say," Buffy agreed, already vowing to herself to do whatever she had to do to ensure that the line of Slayers wouldn't be broken by anyone and that there would be a Slayer in Russia waiting to boot the demons back into the hell worlds and seal the Hellmouth. _Maybe Giles will be able to call the Council and tell them about the threat of the inactive Hellmouth beneath Yelizovo. Maybe they'll be able to somehow monitor it and stop whatever weakens the barrier allowing it to be opened,_ she thought.

"Okay," she said after a moment of thought. "We need to have that conversation but I can understand you only wanting to go through it once. So here's what we'll do myself, Willow and Oz all have final period free tomorrow, we can meet up then, and I'm sure we can get Giles to come especially if I tell him what you just told me."

Xander nodded. "You can come to my apartment then," he said, "it's at Carter Place on Castle Street. Apartment 6."

"We'll be there," Buffy agreed, resolved to get everyone there to the meeting at Xander's new apartment. Then she looked around deciding to move on from the depressing topic to her more immediate – and personal - concern. "Will you help me get all this stuff back to my dorm room?"

"No problem, Buff."

* * *

**Author Note: Well that's the first chapter I hope I've got you all interested to find out just what happened to Xander on his road trip, why he looks like he's aged a couple of years in just three months and how he has a Cyclone months before the SDF-1 even arrives on Earth.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Seeds of Time**

**Author Note: This is going to be the last update for this fic for a while as I'm now going to spend a bit of time working on some of my other fics like Second Chances and Pioneers Dawn - though the muse for the latter is being an uncooperative pain in the ass at the moment. I really hate it when I get writers block.**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own these characters.**

* * *

_**Chapter Two**_

**Carter Place**

**Castle Street, Sunnydale**

Rupert Giles had a cold knot of dread in his stomach as he climbed out of his car in the parking area of the apartment complex where Xander was apparently living. A knot harder than diamond and colder than liquid nitrogen that had been there ever since Buffy had come to see him for the second time in a few hours; bringing with her a terrible portent for the future of a world without the protection of the Slayer line, a world that would fall to the return of the Old Ones. A portent that hadn't come from a Slayer Dream as these things normally did from his technically ex-Slayer, in fact it hadn't even come from Buffy.

No the source of this portent had been Xander Harris.

A part of him didn't want to believe it was a true portent, that it would be another of the younger man's jokes. But the rest of him knew that Xander would never joke about something this serious – well beyond what was necessary to diffuse tension if the rest of them got too wound up about something. This apocalyptic, almost prophecy from him was the real deal as much as they all probably wished it wasn't. Hence why he had agreed to come here and meet with Xander and the other members of the Scooby Gang, to hear exactly what happened to the younger man on his road trip and what exactly he'd seen and what had caused the unthinkable end of the line of Slayers.

_I'm not sure I want to know though,_ he thought as he locked his car and began making his way up the sun-drenched steps to the front of the apartment condominium. _But know I must if I'm to help him somehow prevent it from happening._ Arriving at the building it didn't take him long to find apartment number six, it was on the next floor almost directly above the entrance to the building and within a couple more minutes he was outside the apartment itself.

He hesitated for a moment, mentally preparing himself for whatever was to be revealed, before resolutely knocking the door. He faintly heard a muffled 'coming' from inside the apartment. After a few moments the door opened and he found himself face to face with Xander. Like Buffy had the night before he immediately took note of the changes in Xander's appearance compared to how he'd looked just three months earlier. Not only was he considerably fitter than he had been, having packed on a staggering amount of muscle for such a short period of time, but he appeared to have aged at least a year or two in the time he'd been away.

"Hey G-Man," Xander said smiling in greeting and stepping aside in the traditional Sunnydale invitation to enter if he could. It was something that the human population had adopted as an instinctive vampire defence measure even as their conscious minds generally refused to acknowledge that vampires and demons existed as anything other than creatures of mythology.

"Xander how many times have I told you not to call me that," Giles asked smiling and looking at the younger man with fond exasperation as he entered the apartment, Xander closing the door behind him. He really had come to see him as sort of like a son over the last few years and knowing him so well he could see that Xander had a very heavy burden on his broad shoulders. "Am I the first here," he asked looking around and seeing no sign of Buffy, Oz or Willow.

"More than a few times, though it doesn't mean I'm going to listen and yeah you are," Xander confirmed. "Though I don't think they'll be long as they should be out of classes by now. Coffee?"

"Yes please I wouldn't mind one," Giles replied, he'd gotten used to drinking coffee more often over the last few years. Mostly out of necessity given Americans – in his experience at least – couldn't brew a decent pot of tea to save their lives being more a nation of coffee drinkers.

Xander nodded back and smirked slightly. _Probably guessing what I'm thinking,_ Giles thought. "I'll make one then," Xander replied, "make yourself at home G-Man."

_I do wish he wouldn't call me that I'm not a freaking FBI agent,_ Giles thought as Xander disappeared into the kitchen to either make them both a cup of instant coffee or more likely – since the rest of the Scoobies should be here soon – just fill the coffee machine and start it percolating. Making his way into the living room Giles noticed with some surprise that the place was surprisingly neat and tidy as he would have expected the place to have the usual bachelor pad mess. This had none of that with everything in its place and now that he thought about it everything was placed with a precision that was almost military. _Guess the echo of the soldier is close to the surface in him these days,_ he thought well aware that Xander had retained a surprising amount of both his possessions over the years when for almost everyone else they'd faded – especially the effects of the Halloween possessions caused by his former friend turned enemy Ethan Rayne. This had come in handy from time to time, especially against the Judge and Mayor Wilkins after the latter's demonic ascension. Without Xander's knowledge of bombs and explosives, not to mention his flair for tactics, he doubted they would have gotten out of their alive. As it was the battle had not been without cost with two students and Principal Snyder had been killed, with Snyder actually eaten alive by the Olvikan that Wilkins had transformed into.

He shook off those thoughts, turning his attention back to the reason why he'd actually come here today. The almost-prophecy predicting the end of the world - again. He couldn't help but wonder just how Xander had actually come across it, as surely a prophecy this dire would have been in the Pergamum Codex or one of the other books of prophecy he - and by extension the rest of the Watcher's Council - had access to. He'd quickly checked the codex last night after Buffy had told him what Xander had said to her, there had been nothing. Certainly nothing that predicted the end of the Slayer line and the return of the Old Ones. So where had Xander come across it? And did it have something to do with the apparent energy weapon he'd used last night to kill a number of vampires? Not to mention the physical changes Xander had undergone.

He resolved to find out as soon as the other man returned. Moving over to the sofa he was about to settle down in on one of the comfortable looking leather couches when a flickering device caught his attention. Moving over to investigate he found a small device around the same size as a CD Walkman plugged into one of the mains sockets. Plugged into it were what looked like a number of clips like those found in pistols, two of which had green lights showing on them while the other two had yellow lights showing, obviously still being charged with energy.

"What is this," he said softly carefully looking over the device, despite his normal technophobic nature – which Jenny, rest her soul, had forever teased him about – he could tell that whatever it was it was a highly sophisticated piece of equipment and something that seemed well, out of place or rather out of time in this place.

"It's a pistol charger those power packs are being recharged," Xander's voice said from behind making him jump in surprise, spinning in place he glared at the younger man for trying to give him a heart attack. Xander didn't react at all to the glare. "Coffee machines on," he said moving to sit down, "should be ready in a few minutes."

Giles nodded back and followed Xander's example by sitting down opposite the younger man. "Are those pistols like the one Buffy told me you used last night," he asked.

"Yeah they're SAL-9's," Xander confirmed, "while not as versatile or as powerful as the H-90 Gallant they're easier to field recharge since they don't need a protoculture energy cell to run them just a clip that can be recharged easily off any conventional power source."

Giles frowned. "Protoculture what's that," he asked curious as he'd never heard of a power source, mundane or magical, by that name.

Xander winced realising he'd said more than he should have. "No you wouldn't have," he replied, "because it doesn't exist on this planet yet. Though the matrix will arrive in a few days' time and from then on it's only a matter of time until it's discovered."

Giles blinked, surely Xander couldn't mean what he thought he could mean. "You mean this protoculture is extra-terrestrial in origin?" he asked.

Xander nodded. "That it is," he replied, "the alien ship carrying it will crash onto the surface of the Earth in three days, and its arrival will have one near immediate and positive effect."

"What?"

"It will bring an end to the wars."

Giles blinked again. That would be good news indeed as the wars that had started in the former Yugoslavia after the fall of the Soviet Union hadn't remained confined to the Balklands region but had spread as many advanced Soviet weapons had fallen into the hands of various hostile nations, warlords and terrorist groups. All of whom hadn't hesitated to use them to attack old rivals and so on, though the wars had long since moved beyond those concerns and spread. The reasons for the fighting morphing more and more into a fight between those who wanted to spread international cooperation and those who were isolationists, in fact many news agencies had even started referring to the whole thing as the Global Civil War.

"I suppose that can only be a good thing," he admitted knowing from some of his own relations the toll the war was taking on the nations, like his native Britain, which were having to stretch their military forces further than they'd been spread since World War Two in an attempt to contain the fighting. The Watchers Council was also being run ragged by it as some of the Soviet weapons were unfortunately of a magical nature, forged by a team Soviet war-mages first formed before World War Two by Joseph Stalin as a covert enforcer unit answerable only to him a unit that even the sinister KGB had feared to cross, and not something you wanted anyone to have. Though the unit was long gone, they'd all died at the hands of the Nazi's in Operation Barbarossa, there legacy still remained and a very dangerous one it was.

Before he could speak again, to ask Xander for a bit more information on this alien ship he spoke of, someone knocked hard on the door. "That must be Buffy and the others," he commented recognising the heavy handed knock to the Slayer. Sometimes Buffy just couldn't watch her strength but such was the way with Slayers.

Xander nodded in agreement, standing up and heading to the door. No sooner than he opened it than a certain red-haired Wiccan smashed into him like a guided missile pulling him into a hug. "Hey, Wills," he said in greeting, smiling over Willow's head at Buffy and Oz who were looking on with looks of amusement.

"Xander, your back! I've missed you so much. Buffy says you've been back for a few days, why didn't you call me? I can't believe your folks wanted you to move into the basement and pay rent," Willow said rapidly in the Sunnydale phenomenon that had become known as Willow babble, even as she pulled out of the hug. "This is nice place you've moved into. And what's this Buffy says about the Slayer line ending and the Old Ones returning? Where'd you get that energy weapon and motorbike and why do you look so different."

"Will's slow down and breathe before you pass out," Xander cautioned, stepping aside from the door to let Buffy and Oz come in – the monosyllabic musician being sure to close the door behind him. As Willow started to get her breath back he spoke again. "I've got coffee on. Why don't you all go sit down and I'll sort us out some. Then we can talk."

For a moment both Willow and Buffy looked like they would demand an immediate answer, Buffy especially looked very harried having not slept well the night before; the knowledge that the Slayer line would somehow end and that without the Slayer the world would be destroyed by the return of the Old Ones having played heavily on her mind. But eventually both girls nodded and slipped past him into the living room area, Oz followed behind his girlfriend, the auburn haired werewolf exchanging a polite nod with Xander as he did so.

For his part Xander slipped into the kitchen to pour everyone some coffee and get some donuts, which he'd nipped out to buy before Giles had come around, out of the cupboard. Within a few minutes he had a plate of donuts of various coverings and flavours along with five mugs of freshly brewed Kenyan coffee, plus milk and sugar on a tray. A tray he promptly carried into the living room.

"Here you go," he said putting the tray down on the coffee table before sitting down himself.

"Oh thank you, Xander," Giles acknowledged as he put milk and sugar in one of the mugs, stirred it before picking up the steaming hot liquid. The rest of the Scoobies made similar noises of thanks as they grabbed coffee's themselves.

For a couple more minutes silence dominated the room as none of them really wanted to comment on the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. Finally though Buffy decided she could take no more, not after the incredibly uneasy night she'd had thinking about the end of the Slayers, a night that had impaired her performance in all her classes today and prompted that cute TA of Professor Walsh's Riley to ask if everything was alright, and spoke.

"How did the Slayer line end," she asked. "When?"

"When?" Xander repeated with a sigh "the when is really twelve years from now. All the potentials, along with about eighty percent of the human race, and most of the demons and vamps as well, will be killed in an event that future generations will call the Rain of Death."

"Rain of Death! That sounds ominous," Giles replied a chill going down his spine, the very name indicated that whatever it was it was something truly terrible. "Can you tell us what it was? Was it some kind of demonic attack?"

"It was an attack, Giles but there was nothing magical or demonic about it," Xander answered, steeling himself as even hearing about the Rain of Death second hand and decades after the event itself had done nothing to lessen either the overwhelming horror or the emotional pain of it. "It was a full scale bombardment of the entire planet from orbit, the Zentraedi fleet only got off one focused volley but it was enough. In seconds cities that had stood for centuries or millennia were vaporised killing billions. Among those killed were all the Slayer potentials."

"Good Lord," Giles breathed in horror at the thought of such a horror, such a global genocide. With such a death toll it wasn't surprising that the Slayer line had ended, despite his technophobic nature he wasn't ignorant of things like genetics. Like most Watchers he was well aware that the specific gene sequence that made a girl a potential was a relatively rare one, being present in barely one in a million girls. It wasn't implausible that the bombardment Xander had said about would kill them all.

Without realising he was doing it he took off his glasses and began cleaning them. "How do you know all this," he asked.

"It's a long story, long very crazy sounding story."

"We have plenty of time," Giles pointed out, getting concurring nods from the rest of the Scoobies. Prompting a sigh from Xander.

"That we do," he said after a few moments of silence. "Alright I'll tell you all, but first can you all promise not to interrupt too much or ask questions until the end please? It's going to be hard enough, and crazy enough sounding, without me having to stop to explain things every few minutes."

"We promise, Xander," Buffy replied for all of them, one look telling all of them that whatever it was it was one of the biggest factors in the burden sitting on Xander's shoulders, weighing him down emotionally though he carried it well. _But then Xander's always been stronger than anyone ever thought,_ she thought to herself, _even me and Willow have always underestimated how strong he really is._

"Alright then," Xander answered, taking a sip of his coffee to steal himself before getting started, "it all began just after I left Sunnydale for my road trip…"

* * *

**Three Months Earlier**

The wind rustled through Xander's hair as he drove out of Sunnydale, humming tunelessly as he did so. He had just past the 'you are now leaving Sunnydale, please come back again' sign, the manicured lawns, ornamental palm trees and bushes that lined Sunnydale's streets giving way to the sandy soil and scrubland of the Mojave Desert.

He was so happy to finally be able to go on his long cherished road trip. There had been a number of times in the last few years that he had thought he would never live to see it. Between the never ending hordes of vampires, demons and the odd attempted apocalypse there had been a few times when he had to admit he'd thought his goose to be well and truly cooked. Somehow they'd all survived it and now he was finally able to go on his nationwide journey of self-discovery. _I just wish, Jesse was here to enjoy it with me,_ he thought feeling a momentary surge of pain at the thought of his brother in everything but blood. They'd both dreamed of this for so long, at least till Jesse got turned, it had been one of their biggest dreams for the future. _This is in your memory bro,_ he thought determining then and there to really enjoy this journey in his friends memory.

He'd been driving for about an hour when a new presence caught his attention. He was suddenly aware that someone was in the car with him, glancing to the passenger side he saw a man who looked like he'd stepped straight out of the seventies. A man he knew to be anything other than a man as he recognised him from what Buffy had said – and described – in the past as Whistler, a balance demon who worked for the Powers That Be.

"What do you want," he asked with a sigh.

"We need to talk," Whistler replied, "do you mind pulling over so we can talk without risk of causing an accident?"

Xander sighed again. "All right," he replied, reducing speed and flicking on a turn signal before pulling over to the side of the road. "All right, Whistler, what do you want?"

"You know who I am," Whistler asked surprised.

"Buffy's described you often enough. Whistler, a balance demon," Xander answered, "you work for the Powers That Be."

Whistler smiled and nodded, Xander knowing who he was and what his purpose was made this easier. "That's right," he confirmed.

"So why are you here? Sunnydale's back that way if you want Buffy," Xander stated gesturing over his shoulder at the road leading back to Sunnydale.

"My business isn't with the Slayer this time," Whistler answered. "In fact, it's you I need to speak with."

Xander blinked in surprise. "Okay, about what?" he asked after a moment resisting, just, the impulse to frown as he wondered what the Powers That Be could possibly want with him. He was just a normal human after all, he had no special powers like Buffy or Willow.

"My bosses have a favour to ask you, something only you can do since you're not bound to a specific destiny like Buffy or your witch friend, Willow."

"As much as I appreciate the compliment, Whistler to quote the G-Man stop beating about the bush," Xander replied, "what exactly do the Powers want?"

"They need you to prevent the end of the world."

"Again, it's not even Tuesday. So which demon or other supernatural nasty is trying to end the world this time around?"

"That's just it; the Powers don't exactly know," Whistler answered, sounding a little embarrassed, reflecting the way his bosses were feeling about the whole situation. The Powers That Be had long since gotten used to being able to use their power to see whatever they wished to see and direct events according to specific plans. The fact that they couldn't right now had caused them quite a bit of upset... and had a few of the other higher powers like the Elders laughing at seeing the normally quite aristocratic and aloof Powers running around like headless chickens trying to figure something out.

"Since the Powers exist outside of time as you mortals understand the concept, they can tell that it's happening and when," he continued resisting the impulse to wince at the memory of the ribbing his bosses were getting from the other higher powers. "But not what precipitates it."

"So what is it?"

"The when is forty-five years from now," Whistler explained. "As to the event itself, one of the dormant Hellmouths is violently ruptured open. What the cause of the rupture is, we have no idea. All we know is it wasn't magic that acted as the initial catalyst for the breach, but the result is clear: the Old Ones are coming through in massive numbers. They're reclaiming this plane after being banished for so long."

Xander shuddered at the thought of the Old Ones returning and ravaging the world. He still had nightmares about the battle with the mayor post-ascension. That had been one hell of a difficult battle, the worst against evil he'd ever fought in, and considering their battles with the likes of The Master, the Judge, and Angelus, that was saying something. He was fully aware that they'd only really succeeded against Olvikan because Wilkins hadn't yet been at his full power, that the transfiguration from a six foot tall, one hundred and seventy five pound human into a sixty foot long, twelve and a half ton snake demon had drained almost all his energy. Even with that low energy handicap, they'd barely defeated him.

Thus the prospect of having to fight full strength Old Ones filled him with a combination of horror, fear and dread. "Can't the Slayer stop them?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, by that time, there are no Slayers left. As far we can tell, they're all dead."

"What?! How?"

"That's one of the things that the Powers want you to find out, as all we know is, twelve years from now, something will happen, some kind of massive energy discharge of a kind we've never seen before. It will cloud the Powers' ability to see the mortal world and cost most of our champions, not just the Slayer.

"Of course the bigger issue is finding out what causes the dormant Hellmouth beneath a Russian town – whose name I can't pronounce, so don't ask – to rupture so suddenly and catastrophically more than thirty years later," Whistler continued.

"And just how am I supposed to find that out, Whistler? I can't travel in time."

"Of course not. Temporal magic was largely denied to mortals for a reason; as your Willow friend found out, it can be very dangerous if you don't know exactly what you're doing. That is why I'm going to send you forward in time," Whistler answered.

"Okay, so why do you want me to do this? Wouldn't it be better to send someone like Buffy forward in time to find out what you want to know?"

"Remember what I said about you not being tied to a particular destiny?" Whistler reminded him. "What that means, Xander, is you are a true instrument of free will, and while that has caused a few headaches for my bosses in the past, what with your very annoying habit of breaking the occasional prophecy, that makes you ideal for this. Because if we move you through time, the other side won't notice in the way they would immediately notice if we moved Buffy or your witch friend. Notice and immediately take steps to counter."

Xander couldn't help but smirk slightly at Whistler's declaration of how him occasionally thwarting prophecy, especially when his friends were in danger, caused the Powers to have a few headaches. Maybe it would teach them to make fewer lousy, cryptic, annoying prophecies in the future, though somehow he doubted it, as he got the distinct impression that the Powers That Be were a group who, like the Watchers Council, were very set in their ways.

"So what's your answer?" Whistler asked.

"Is there no other way of finding out what causes this Russian Hellmouth to open?" Xander queried. Somehow he wasn't surprised when the balance demon shook his head in the negative. _Of course there isn't any other way! Why would there be? We're never that lucky,_ he thought with a mental sigh, resigning himself to the fact that his road trip was going to be very different to what he'd planned it to be. "All right. I'll do it."

Whistler smiled in relief, as the Powers had been worried that Xander would say no as they couldn't just draft him into this, like they would most other humans, for the simple reason that the Old God Janus was known to favour the boy, the old rascal deriving endless pleasure from the chaos Xander sometimes caused the Powers with his constant interference with some of their plans to serve the Balance. A few times, they'd even tried to mentally influence Slayer Summers and the practitioner witch Rosenberg to push him away and thus reduce the likelihood of future interference in their plans, only for it never to work that well or last for very long.

The fact that they now needed Alexander's help themselves, for the same reason they'd tried to push him out of the fight, was the ultimate irony. _And one that's no doubt causing Janus no end of amusement,_ Whistler thought with a mental groan, knowing the old Roman deity would be laughing both his heads off at the Powers' ironic predicament. _He definitely won't let us forget this one for a century or two._

"Excellent," he said. "As soon as you begin driving again a portal will open in front of you. It will take you forward into the future. Now before you go, the Powers would like me to give you two things. First this," from a pocket Whistler produced a small silver talisman on a chain that could be worn around the neck, "it will create a portal that will return you here to the past once you have all the information that you require."

Xander quickly accepted the talisman and hung it around his neck, slipping it under the shirt he was wearing so it rested against the crucifix he'd habitually worn ever since he'd learned the truth about what went bump in the night. "And the other?" he asked.

"This," Whistler replied holding up a hand, which was now filled with a whirling ball of silver-white energy.

"What is it?"

"It's kind of a reward from the Powers for agreeing to do this," Whistler replied. "It will help you survive both where you are going and when you return here to the present. And don't worry, this doesn't make you a champion for the Powers like Buffy, Willow, or Angel." _Not that it wasn't tempting to try, but Janus would never let the Powers get away with something like that,_ he thought with an inward wince knowing the storm that would have caused on the higher planes as divine politics made mortal politics at their worst look like a child's game. "It's just a way for us to say thank you. Take it, please."

Xander hesitated for a few moments, more than a little wary of accepting what Whistler was offering. Given his history with magic, there was no guarantee that it would work right. But eventually, he reached out his hand to take the energy orb Whistler was holding. The moment his hand touched it, the energy was absorbed into his body, running through him with a profound jolt that was almost like an electric shock. He could feel the energy affecting him, altering him in some deep and profound way. After a few moments, the sensations faded away.

"You'll start noticing the differences soon," Whistler said.

"What exactly did that do to me?"

Whistler smiled mysteriously. "You'll find out," he said before, with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble, vanished as if he'd never been present at all.

Xander sighed and muttered under his breath about how balance demons needed to learn a few manners. He took a few deep breaths to prepare himself for whatever was to follow, remembering what Whistler had said about a portal opening ahead of his car as soon as he started driving again, before restarting his car's engine. After putting the convertible's hood back up - he had no idea what the weather would be like in the future after all and this car was dilapidated enough as it was without adding rain damage to the cab to its list of things that needed fixing - pulled out onto the quiet desert road.

Within seconds, he became aware of a change in the air, calmness like the eerie stillness that preceded a big storm. A few feet ahead of him, the shimmering haze of the midday heat thickened and began to distort. A strange silver-green glow, both eldritch and ethereal, began to suffuse the thickening haze. As he drove ever closer, the distortion in the haze grew stronger and stronger, until a great glowing aperture appeared directly in his path.

Without hesitation, he drove straight into it.

And suddenly, it was like he was flying down one of the wormholes from that cool sci-fi show Stargate SG-1 that he sometimes watched on television... when he wasn't out patrolling with Buffy and the others that was. For what seemed like forever, the shimmering, silver-green walls of the wormhole twisted and turned, the car following them without any input from him as it was now completely out of his control. A white light appeared ahead, presumably marking the end of the temporal wormhole, and he reached it in an instant.

For a moment, all he saw was a bright white light…

….then suddenly, the car was falling through the air, having appeared nearly three meters above the surface of a badly decayed and eroded roadway partially obscured by the shifting sands of the desert that stretched into the distance all around. The car hit the disintegrating asphalt surface with bone-jarring force, and with it having been maintained just enough to be roadworthy by Uncle Rory, a few things happened almost simultaneously as a result.

First, the force of the impact snapped the suspension springs with a loud series of metallic cracks, splinters of broken metal from the springs flying into his tires causing four instant punctures. At the same time, the shock disabled the engine and ruptured the radiator, sending up a huge cloud of steam and dumping boiling water onto the surface of the badly decayed desert road. Finally, the transmitted force of impact knocked Xander forward into his automatically deploying air bag and instantly robbed him of consciousness.

* * *

**6 Carter Place**

**Sunnydale**

"So that's what happened to your car," Buffy commented as Xander finished explaining how he'd crashed, through no fault of his own, after coming out of the temporal wormhole that the Powers That Be had generated.

"Yeah, though I wasn't without a vehicle for very long," Xander replied, not surprised that Buffy had commented on what had happened to his car as she'd asked about it the night before, and he'd given her a very evasive answer, to say the least.

"The Cyclone?" Buffy queried, recalling the one hell of a sweet motorcycle she'd ridden with him the night before.

"Among others," Xander answered with a slight smile. "I only brought the Cyclone to the Bronze last night, as it's the easiest to pass off as a normal vehicle. Though I did have to change the front wheel covers first to CADS-1 covers instead of the normal ones."

"It's more than it appears?" Buffy asked. "And what are CADS-1 covers?"

"Close Assault Defence System One. Remember the vibroblade knife I gave you last night?" At Buffy's nod he continued, "Inside each hubcap is a larger version of it."

"What's the normal caps then," Willow asked curious.

Xander shrugged. "Missiles," he replied.

"Missiles!" Willow, Buffy and Giles exclaimed together while Oz merely raised an eyebrow to 'surprised 4.5'.

"Specifically, Scorpion micro-missiles. Four of them in total, each one fully capable of punching through even the most heavily armoured vehicles on the planet and destroying them."

"Good Lord," Giles exclaimed. "What the hell was that thing made to fight if it has such powerful weapons?"

"You'll find out soon enough, Giles. Now can I get on with the story?"

"Of course, my boy."

"Ugh, first can you tell me something? What did that energy ball thingy of Whistler's do to you, Xander?" Buffy asked, hoping it hadn't hurt him in anyway. If it had, then the balance demon would _so_ not enjoy their next meeting, assuming he even survived it.

Xander sighed. He should have known they would ask about that. "As near as I can gather, it acted a bit like a magical catalyst," he explained, "enhancing some of the traits and abilities I've retained from my possessions over the years. For example, I can now recall all of Soldier Boy's training and use his skills properly... which did come in handy, I can tell you."

Willow frowned. "But I thought you could do that already? I mean, you did build the bomb we used to take out the mayor," she pointed out.

"That was just some of his knowledge, Wills," Xander explained, "not his combat skills, those faded away almost to nothing in the months after Giles broke Ethan's spell. Anyone can make a bomb. All it takes is a little bit of technical knowhow and a great deal of care."

"A very good point, Xander, and if the Powers' gift helped you survive, then it's not something any of us should argue with," Giles agreed. "You best continue with your recounting of what happened in the future the Powers sent you to."

"Agreed. So where was I?"

"You'd just crashed after coming out the temporal wormhole," Willow prompted, even as a part of her made a mental note to investigate magical catalysts at some point to learn just what the Powers had done to her Xander-shaped friend... not that she would take it from him, not now as him having advanced combat skills meant she – and Buffy – no longer had to worry about him getting hurt in the fight against the darkness. No, she'd leave it there, and besides, if the Powers had put it there, then it was unlikely she'd have been able to remove the magic even if she wanted to.

"Oh, right, yeah," Xander remembered before resuming his tale. "So, there I was, unconscious in the front seat of the remains of my car, completely exposed to the merciless desert sun. Thankfully, before I could literally start to bake to death, someone came to my rescue."


	3. Chapter 3

**Seeds of Time**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement. Sadly all Buffy and Robotech characters remain the property of their respective creators, I am merely borrowing them and make no profit from their use. So please continue to keep the lawyers firmly on their leash.**

**Authors Note: I actually wasn't expecting to get this chapter ready yet but the muse decided to cooperate more readily so the last parts of this chapter just flew together. So here it is for you all to view and enjoy.**

**My thanks to Cyclone for being such a good beta for this fic.**

* * *

_**Chapter Three**_

**The Future**

Randolph 'Rand' O'Keeffe hummed softly to himself as his trusty motorcycle carried him across the desert that had once been a fertile plain, at least during his grandfather's time. Like much of the planet, this region had been hit hard during the Rain of Death, the incalculable energies of the reflex beams burning away huge chunks of topsoil, burning all the way down to the bedrock itself and sterilising everything and in some places turning the ground briefly into molten lava. This desert was the result, as even decades later, the region had yet to fully recover, the amount of energy and fine particulate debris blown into the atmosphere, altering weather patterns all over the planet.

The desert would end soon. Another day, and he'd be out of it and into a lush temperate forest fed by numerous rivers carrying rainwater and snowmelt down from the distant Andes. Another few days down the road, he would reach the settlement known as Lake Town due to its position on the shore of a lake created in the very same bombardment that had turned the grasslands into this desert.

A loud crash from somewhere up ahead of him caught his attention. A moment later, there came a whump, and a cloud of white steam abruptly shot up into the atmosphere, glittering strangely in the bright midday sun. _What the hell?_ he thought, turning the throttle on his bike to pick up speed. Skirting around the base of a large sand dune, he came upon the source of the noise and came to a dead halt, gazing across the sun blasted ground in disbelief.

Sitting there, on what had long ago been a roadway through the desert, was a kind of vehicle that hadn't really existed for decades. It was a canvas-topped car, one of a design he'd only glimpsed in a handful of old magazines from the pre-Rain days. Steam was rising from the engine compartment at the front, and from the distribution of debris around it, the vehicle looked like it had fallen right out of the sky.

Cautiously, he began moving closer. Even though the vehicle was wrecked, he would be sure to find something worth salvaging here, something he could sell in exchange for food or something when he eventually reached Lake Town. The prospect of salvage flew out of his head as he got close enough to see someone slumped in the driver's position, head buried in some kind of white crash bag.

Stopping his bike, he hopped off and raced up, concerned now with seeing if whoever this was was alive. Reaching the driver's side door, he cautiously reached in through the open window and checked for a pulse. Amazingly, the dark-haired man in the seat was alive; he just appeared to be unconscious, presumably from the impact. _I better get him out of here,_ Rand thought. The stranger wouldn't survive long out here, especially if he was injured.

What made getting the stranger out even more of a priority was a smell coming from the vehicle. The smell triggered an old memory from his childhood and the old hydrocarbon-fuelled generator that had powered the house his parents had raised him in... well, until they'd been killed in the chaos that had swept over the planet after the Invid first invaded, overpowering the forces of the United Earth Government and the Army of the Southern Cross which had been badly weakened by the war against the Robotech Masters. The car's fuel tank had to be leaking, and he knew enough about hydrocarbon fuels to know that that was very, very bad, as they could be extremely flammable, the vapours highly explosive, needing not much more than a spark to ignite them if the concentration was high enough.

Carefully, he tried the door lock. Amazingly, it opened, allowing him to open the driver's door, revealing the stranger strapped firmly in his seat. After retrieving a sharp knife from a sheath on his bike, he returned to car and carefully cut the seatbelt strap before, incredibly gently so as not to cause injury or exasperate any existing injuries, easing the stranger out the car and carrying him away. It wasn't easy, as whoever he was, the stranger obviously worked hard to keep himself in shape and, unconscious, was something of a deadweight.

He made it… barely.

He had just gotten the unconscious man clear when a loud _whumph_ came from the direction of the wrecked vehicle. Glancing back at the vehicle, he saw flames enveloping it; a second later, it violently exploded into a fireball, sending a thick plume of black smoke, riven through with great orange flames, mushrooming into the sky.

"Whoa, that was close," he muttered before turning his attention to the man he'd just saved. "Okay, now what am I going to do with you?" he wondered aloud.

* * *

**Reflex Point**

**That Same Time**

Standing in the centre of the core of the great hive complex that was Reflex Point stood a tall, willowy woman, a woman wearing a floor length red gown with odd face-like green ornaments around her neck, a woman who was completely and totally bald, a woman surrounded by a glowing cocoon of psionic energy that made her look completely ethereal and mysterious. A woman who technically wasn't a woman at all.

She was the Regis. The great mother of all the Invid, but to simply call her a queen like in an insect hive would have not done her justice. She was far, far more than that. She was the physical embodiment of the very life force and spirit of her race and one of the two supreme rulers of the Invid.

And right now, she was deeply puzzled.

Several minutes ago, something very, very strange had begun to register on her psionic awareness. A distortion of some kind in the space-time continuum, one unlike anything she'd ever encountered in her eons long existence. She'd had the nearest hive to the source of the strange feeling scan the area. It wasn't easy, as it was in a very remote locale in one of the desert regions created decades earlier by the Robotech Masters' Zentraedi servants, so it was on the very edge of the closest hive's sensor range. It hadn't provided any answers, only many more questions, as the distortion was giving off readings consistent with a very rare kind of spatial anomaly that the people of this world would call a wormhole.

She didn't understand how a wormhole could occur on a planet; by their very nature, wormholes were dangerous, unpredictable phenomena of which little was known by any race, for the simple reason that anyone with an ounce of sense didn't go anywhere near them. But one thing that was known about them was they couldn't occur in a strong gravitational environment like a planet. So how was this one here? And why was it giving off such odd tachyon readings?

After a moment, she focused her thoughts on the closest hive to the region again. _"Dispatch science and scouting team to investigate spatial anomaly in Sector 21D4,"_ she instructed and felt her children in the hive immediately begin to react. A smile teased her lips at that; soon, she would get some answers on the anomaly.

Abruptly, alarms exploded through her awareness. _What?_ she thought before investigating and scowling as sensors were picking up powerful gravitational distortions building in orbit. Ships were defolding from hyperspace; from the size of the distortion, quite a significant number of them. She wasn't surprised when the emerging fold spheres evaporated, revealing a fleet of Human warships: three heavy cruisers, a dozen cruisers, and a large number of small landing craft. They were making another attempt to drive her people from the planet that was destined to be her people's new home.

Again, she focused her thoughts. _"Hostile forces in orbit. Alert forces intercept and engage; dispatch reinforcements."_

The warships heading for orbit were a threat, unlike the anomaly which was merely a curiosity, so she turned her full attention to the situation up there. The walls of the core turned into a holographic display showing her exactly what was happening up there, with a group of the alert carriers kept in orbit moving to intercept and deploy their cargos of armed scouts while additional carriers prepared to launch from the surface to either aide them or intercept the enemy ground forces before they could land. The Humans, for their part, had deployed their ships into battle formation and were launching mecha as they continued to approach.

For another long moment, nothing happened, then the carriers and their escorting scouts crossed an invisible line in space…

…and the Humans opened fire, both the heavy and standard cruisers unleashing a blaze of bright blue-white energy beams and a veritable hailstorm of missiles.

Three carriers were struck immediately, high powered particle beams lancing into them and punching through their armoured hulls into the vulnerable mecha bays and fuel storage areas within. The result was immediate and predictable, and with a flash of fire and the telepathic death screams of hundreds of her children, all three vessels blew apart. Simultaneously, the anti-mecha missiles ripped into the thin screen of armed scouts attempting to shield the remaining carriers, blowing dozens apart in moments.

The Regis flinched again as she heard yet more telepathic death cries. This was why, while she accepted combat as a necessary evil, she didn't like it that much, unlike her degenerate husband the Regent, who seemed to revel in pain and sorrow. Mentally, she braced herself to hear more death cries, as experience had taught her things would get worse before they got better.

That prediction that was proven a moment later, as four more carriers were effortlessly blasted apart by the powerful beams the Human ships were firing. The remaining two, however, managed to get into range to begin deploying the armoured scouts docked within them. Human mecha immediately moved to intercept them, unleashing a barrage of missiles themselves. Her children, however, pressed forward, ignoring their losses, some engaging the enemy mecha while the rest headed for the capital ships... and ran straight into a hail of pulsed laser bolts from close in guns that tore many from the sky in momentary bursts of ionic flame. The few survivors that got close enough to loose plasma salvos found their weapons doing little damage as they either encountered the odd disc-like energy barriers Human ships tended to favour over full ship shields or dense armoured hulls.

The Regis scowled as the tide of the battle seemed to swing against her people. The Humans had clearly learned from previous encounters with her husband's forces to target the carriers first and from as long a range as possible. She made a mental note to increase the size of carrier escorts in the future, even as the Humans entered orbit, the capital ships and some of the mecha spreading out to form a defensive perimeter their beam weapons continuing to blaze as they cut her children down. With a perimeter established, the smaller landing ships began making for the atmosphere.

"_Attention. Robotech landing craft heading for the atmosphere,"_ she thought out to all her people around the planet._ "All hives, prepare to repel possible enemy ground attack, activate shields, and prepare for orbital bombardment."_

The first of her reserve forces launched from the surface finally reached the battle; two more carriers were shot down before they could launch mecha, but the rest managing to launch their cargo. She allowed herself to feel a small sliver of relief as armoured scouts and shock troopers engaged in massive formations, punching through the fleet's defence perimeter, and the tide of the fighting began to turn against the Human force.

After another few anxious minutes, the Human defence perimeter collapsed as more and more of her children engaged them. Landing ships began dying as armoured scouts specifically targeted the relatively lightly armoured ships for destruction, leaving the more heavily armed shock troopers to concentrate their heavier plasma cannons on the capitals. The capital ships were continuing to fight hard, pounding out beams and pulses of super-condensed energy and making her children pay a truly horrendous price in blood for every ship or fighter they destroyed.

An explosion lit the holographic display as one of the smaller capital ships exploded under heavy sustained attack, followed by a second moments later. The amount of fire coming from the remaining ships was also diminishing as her brave children took out gun turrets and weapons ports, often at great cost to themselves as they ran a gauntlet of lasers and defending mecha, triggering secondary internal explosions on the Human ships. Another explosion lit the screen as one of the heavy cruisers and a few more of the smaller ones succumbed to the sting of Invid plasma fire. The remaining ships began angling away, clearly preparing to withdraw from the battle, all the while laying down a dense curtain of fire from every remaining operational battery that they had, each volley of fire claiming yet more of her children's lives.

Another heavy cruiser exploded as its reflex furnace was compromised. Fold spheres appeared around the remaining heavy cruiser and two remaining standard cruisers, and they were gone, vanished into hyperspace.

The battle was over.

The Regis let herself relax and emitted a private sigh of relief. That battle had been entirely too close for comfort; after the last Human attack, she'd increased the number of forces kept in orbit as a rapid reaction force, but obviously, that wasn't enough, and the Human ships had shown themselves to have far more firepower than she'd believed them to possess, in the process showing that in addition to massive firepower, they could strike with a devastating accuracy from even extreme range. It was quite evident that it had only been the arrival of the units launched from the surface that had turned the tide of the orbital battle, and even then, just barely, as even her reinforcing forces had been very badly mauled.

It was obvious to her that had the Humans had a few more capital ships with them – possibly up to and including a battlefortress – then they could have secured orbit and begun landing troops while bombarding her location here at Reflex Point and other major hives from orbit, softening them up for a following ground attack. Much as she would prefer to divert all her attention to the evolution experiments, it was clear that she would have to increase the orbital defences, maybe even construct a few space hives and some surface-to-space weapons, as they were bound to try again eventually, and if they held true to their patterns, the next attack force would be even bigger and more powerful than the one that had been just, so narrowly, defeated.

_Now for that anomaly,_ she thought, turning her attention back to the anomaly... to find that it had vanished. All the spatial distortions, the tachyon emissions, everything had disappeared. To say that she was stunned by the sudden change would have been an understatement, stunned but at the same time deeply intrigued. Normally wormholes left a gravitational echo in hyperspace after closing, an echo that could last anywhere from eighteen hours to several days.

Yet this one hadn't.

Instead, it had vanished without a trace. A sudden suspicion gripped her, and with a thought, she ordered the nearest hive to scan the region looking for any active protoculture power sources of the kind the Humans were known to use in their mecha. Given its unique ability to appear inside a strong gravity well, and the odd tachyon emissions it had been giving off, she wouldn't be surprised if it had been created by the Humans through some new and previously unknown technology, probably with the purpose of slipping military forces onto the planet which would mean the orbital battle had been a feint – a ploy to draw her attention and distract her and her forces from the real invasion force. The fact that anyone would commit such a powerful force to a distraction was almost incomprehensible to her, but she wouldn't put it past the Humans to do so, as they could be both extremely sneaky and very ruthless when they wished to be. It was a very bad combination, given that – while radically different to the Invid – they were also a highly intelligent and adaptable species.

Suspicion turned back into confusion when the results of the scans came back. There were no protoculture signatures of any kind present within the target region, which meant one of two things: either the Humans had somehow figured out how to shield their power sources from her people's sensors, which while possible theoretically was somewhat unlikely as no one other than the hated Children of the Shadow had ever been able to do that before, or they weren't there, and the wormhole's appearance and the Human fleet's arrival had been pure coincidence.

She would have to ponder this carefully.

* * *

**Former Anomaly Site**

**A Few Moments Earlier**

Xander groaned softly, almost inaudibly, as consciousness slowly, but surely, returned to his body. The first thing he became aware of was a very curious mixture of intense, dry heat and damp cold. As he became more aware of the world, he noticed that he wasn't in his car any longer, but was lying flat of a coarse grainy surface that felt like sand.

A second, much louder, groan was drawn from his throat as he realised that his head felt like it had the entire US Marine Corps band pounding away inside it.

"Easy," an unfamiliar male voice with an unfamiliar accent said from somewhere nearby, a moment before a cloth that felt damp was dabbled gently over his face. "You took a nasty knock when your car crashed."

Xander groaned again as he heard that. "Oh, damn it, Whistler," he groaned aloud, wondering why the balance demon hadn't told him that the temporal wormhole would make him appear in mid-air. Unless he hadn't planned for it to do that, which was entirely possible, considering magic never seemed to quite work right around him.

"Who's Whistler?" the strange voice asked curiously.

Still not entirely with it, he answered without thinking. "Balance demon," he said, then his mind caught up with what he'd said, and he winced. _Great, now whoever this is, they're going to think I'm nuts,_ he thought, recalling how the vast majority of humanity seemed to be completely ignorant of the supernatural world.

"You know about demons?" the voice asked. Forcing his eyes open and blinking rapidly against the glare, Xander looked up to see a redheaded young man who looked to be in either his late teens or very early twenties squatting down over him. The young man seemed more surprised that he knew about demons and the supernatural than the fact that it existed. _Has he encountered it?_ he wondered. _Is he like me, Willow, and Cordelia, unable to ignore the reality that our world isn't a safe as we like to believe?_

"You know?" he asked.

"Most of us who forage out here in the wilderness know," the man replied. "I've encountered the odd fang face here and there, not to mention these odd demons with retractable bone spikes on their arms."

"Polgara demons," Xander identified them easily; they'd encountered them often enough in Sunnydale. Though he had to admit, sightings had become rarer over recent months, given how often Buffy usually had to beat the crap out of the bad tempered, perennially hungry reptilian humanoids. They assumed that the Polgara demons – while not the smartest of the things that went 'grr' in the night – had finally gotten the message that the Slayer was out there, was fully capable of kicking their asses without breaking a sweat and had decided to hunt elsewhere.

"Is that what they're called?"

"Yup. Fast and strong – like most demons – but somewhat on the dumb side."

"You can say that again," Rand mused, recalling his last meeting with a group of Polgara demons. They'd kept coming at him even after he'd pulled out that SAL-9 Laser pistol he'd acquired a few years ago, alongside a charger, from a downed Robotech vessel. Unlike vampires, who in his experience tended to run when he took it out, knowing the beam would kill them as readily as anyone else, the Polgara demons he'd been facing had continued approaching, intent on making him their dinner. Suffice to say, he'd soon dissuaded them of that notion – a laser blast to the skull killing each with ease. "I'm Rand, by the way."

"Xander," Xander replied as his headache faded away, disappearing strangely quickly. "I suppose I should say thanks for pulling me out of my car."

"You're welcome," Rand answered. "I'm just glad that I got there in time. Another few minutes, and you'd have burned to death."

Xander shuddered at the thought of that. His soldier memories showed him that burning to death was a truly horrendous way to die. The soldier – who'd fought in Vietnam – had seen people be burned alive by flamethrowers or napalm bombs and never forgotten it, which meant he got dreams about it, dreams he could have done without. Vampires and demons gave him a nightmares enough as it was, thank you very much.

"Where'd you get that car anyway?" Rand asked honestly curious. "As far as I know, nothing like that has existed since the Rain of Death."

"The what?" Xander asked.

Rand gaped at him in disbelief. "You don't know?" he asked incredulous. "How can you not know? Every human being knows about it! Some of the older generations actually remember it."

"That's a very long and very crazy sounding story, Rand."

Rand started to open his mouth to tell the other man that he was listening when the roar of approaching engines caught his attention, engines with a very familiar sound to them. "Shit," he yelled, "we've got to get out of here, and we've got to do it now."

"Why?" Xander asked, concerned at the alarm on the other man's face. Although he could hear the engines, he didn't know why the other man was afraid of them.

"Because the Invid are coming," Rand explained, wondering just where the hell Xander had been if he didn't know about the Rain of Death or the Invid. "If they find us, they'll take us, and we'll become unpaid tenants on an Invid protoculture farm."

_What the hell is protoculture?_ Xander wondered before deciding that whatever it was, asking about it could wait until later. First, they needed to escape whoever or whatever these Invid were; he'd never heard of any demons called that, not to mention that aside from vampires – who had been known to use modern technology – most demons didn't use artificial transportation.

"Okay, how?" he asked. "From what you've said my car is kind of flambéed."

"I have transport; it'll be a bit of a squeeze with the two of us, but come on," Rand said, holding out a hand to help him stand up. Xander gratefully accepted the offer of assistance and got back to his feet.

Without another word, Rand turned and started walking away. Xander followed hot on his heels, noting the smouldering, burnt-out remains of his car out of the corner of his eye. _Man, I really dodged a bullet thanks to this guy,_ he thought. _Damn it, Whistler, you should have checked that I wasn't going to appear in mid-air when I came out the temporal wormhole._

After a moment, they came to a rugged-looking bike. Rand immediately hopped on, gesturing for him to get on behind. Xander did so, wrapping his arms around the other man so he wouldn't fall off.

"Hold on tight," Rand said as he gunned the engine; the hydrogen fuel cell powering it hummed to life immediately. Without waiting for a response, he started them moving, the sudden acceleration almost throwing Xander off the bike.

"Whoa, careful there, tiger," he said.

"Sorry," Rand replied as he headed towards a rocky outcrop just off the old roadway that had crossed this region back before the Rain. Having travelled this way before, he knew there were a number of caves in that outcrop. If they could get into the caves before the Invid arrived, then they'd be home free, as the mineral content of rocks would shield them from the Invid sensors. They'd just have to sit in the cave for a few hours or so until the Invid moved on. In fact, it would be a good place to camp for the night, considering it would be dark in another three or four hours, and desert nights were surprisingly cold.

Which would give him and his new travelling companion plenty of time to get to know one another.

* * *

**6 Carter Place**

**Sunnydale**

"Who are the Invid?"

Xander resisted, just, the impulse to sigh in exasperation as Willow's question hung pregnant in the air. How was he supposed to explain everything that he'd been through, everything that he'd learned in the future if he kept being interrupted? He had asked the other Scoobies not to interrupt him during his recital, and they'd agreed to it. So, why did they have to seemingly break their word every five minutes or so?

"Are they demons?" Buffy added, inwardly frowning, chagrined, as she caught the look of annoyance that flashed across Xander's face and guessing its cause. "Sorry," she apologized.

"It's all right," Xander replied. Despite his irritation at being interrupted, asking what the Invid were was a fair question. "No, the Invid aren't demons, though there are some, on a dozen planets across the length and breadth of the galaxy, who've called them that over the years."

"They're aliens," Willow exclaimed shocked.

"Yes, they are. The Invid are a protoplasmic species that come originally from a distant world called Optera," Xander explained.

"So, what's there interest in Earth?" Giles asked, a cold feeling filling him as he began to suspect that the Invid had been behaving much like his ancestors – and other Europeans – had in setting up colonies on other worlds and oppressing the native peoples due to racism.

"Well, they have none, not at this time, but if events remain unaltered, they will," Xander explained. "The exact history is complicated and convoluted, so I won't really go into it here, otherwise we'll be here all night, but what I will say is that a plant they need to survive - in our language its name means Flower of Life - was stolen from Optera, not by us but by another race.

"At the end of a war between us and those who stole it, some of the Flower of Life's spores were released here," Xander continued. "It rapidly assimilated itself into Earth's biosphere and began thriving. Unfortunately for us, the Invid soon found out about it… and came in force. However, instead of just taking it, they conquered Earth and enslaved our people."

"A sadly old and familiar story," Giles said sadly, recalling the historical slavery here on Earth, a disgusting trade in human misery that had continued for far too many centuries… and still did, in some parts of the world.

"Unfortunately," Xander agreed. "But the Invid leader, the Regis, wanted far more from Earth than just turning it into a vast farm colony. She wanted it to be her people's new homeworld, as Optera was by then to all intents and purposes a dead world. But to do that, she needed to adapt her people to our environmental conditions, and it was a mistake by her during one of those experiments that weakened the dimensional barrier at the Yelizovo Hellmouth, allowing the Old Ones to begin breaking through the barrier."

"How?" Giles demanded, wondering how a scientific experiment could have that kind of effect on the quasi-mystical barrier that separated their dimension, their universe from the hell dimensions.

"Long story, G-Man."

"Then by all means, continue with your recital," Giles replied, ignoring the use of that hated nickname and getting concurring nods from the other three Scoobies in the room.

"Right, so where was I?"

"You and Rand were heading for a rocky outcrop," Oz said helpfully.

"Ah, right," Xander replied, smiling and nodding at the werewolf in thanks for his reminder. He'd never really been much of a storyteller before. After taking another swig of his steadily cooling coffee, he resumed his tale.

* * *

**The Future**

"So, let me get this straight. You're from the past?"

Sitting on a convenient boulder in the cave in which they were sheltering Xander nodded back at Rand. They'd been in this cave for nearly ten minutes before Rand had begun asking him questions about who he was and how he'd gotten here.

"And you were transported here to my time by this Whistler through temporal magic to find out just what causes the world to end at a date two years or so from now," Rand continued. Again, he gained a nod. He sighed and shook his head. "No offense, Xander, but if I hadn't encountered the supernatural before, and if I hadn't seen your car, I would think you were crazy."

"I wouldn't blame you, Rand," Xander admitted. "I admit, it does sound crazy, even to me, and I'm used to the supernatural. Hell, I've been fighting the things that go 'grr' in the night ever since I was sixteen, and I've seen some truly crazy magic stuff over that time, and I still find this whole situation hard to believe."

"Even having experienced it?"

"Even then," Xander admitted.

"So now what?"

"I have no idea. Whistler wasn't exactly helpful about what I should look for, only something that could have weakened the dimensional barrier at an inactive Hellmouth on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula."

"What's a Hellmouth?" Rand asked curious. "Is it what it sounds like?"

"It is. The way G-Man described it, it's a fissure in the barrier that separates our universe from the various hell dimensions. Most of the time, it's closed but still active, emitting enough dark magic to attract every foul and evil thing between here and Hades. And the most active one on the planet was beneath my old High School. Well, until we blew the school up to kill the Mayor."

"Why on Earth would you do that?"

"Because he was a warlock who sold his soul a hundred years ago in order to ascend and become a True Demon – an Olvikan to be precise, which is a kind of giant demonic snake that would have given even a T-Rex a scare. He succeeded in ascending, but while he was still weakened from the transformation, we lured his giant snaky ass into the library and blew him up."

Rand shivered at the thought of a demon that would have scared even a mighty T-Rex. He'd read a number of books from the various abandoned libraries he stumbled across during his travels, even stumbled into an old museum once and seen a skeleton of one – so he knew full well how big and how fearsome the Tyrannosaurus Rex had been, even when compared to a battloid.

"So, back to my question, what are you going to do now?" he asked after a moment of silence.

"I don't know," Xander repeated. "My car's gone, along with all my stuff."

"You could come with me for a while," Rand offered. "You don't know this world or the dangers that are out there now. I do. I could help you."

Xander considered that for a moment or two. "Sure," he said at last, knowing that Rand was right; he didn't know this world, didn't know its dangers like those Invid things, whatever they were. A friend and a guide would be invaluable. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"What the hell are Invid? And what the hell is that Rain of Death thing you mentioned?"

"You did have to ask that, didn't you? All right, I'll tell you, but I warn you, it's a very long story, and I don't know all of it."

"We have plenty of time."

Rand gave him a slight, rueful smile in response. "That we do," he agreed. "Okay, I suppose I could say it began back in 1999 on a night that changed the course of history."

* * *

**Authors Note: No doubt everyone has by now noticed how I changed the battle in orbit between the Invid and the Mars Division attack force that Scott Bernard was part of. I decided to change it because all too often in Robotech – especially in New Generation and Shadow Chronicles – they seemed to forget that the capital ships had their own weapons and that said weapons are fully capable of tearing Invid carrier ships from the sky with a single volley. With that in mind I changed the battle though not its outcome I hope no one minds.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Seeds of Time**_

**Author Note: I just want to let everyone know that I won't be recreating faithfully every single episode of Robotech: The New Generation's story, while the next few chapters will be almost the same, with only a couple of differences here and there, this is mostly just to get all the members of Scott's cell – with the exception of Marlene/Ariel – together. After that I will only rewrite some of the episodes, with appropriate tweaks to fit the fused Buffy/Robotech reality, as they'll be important for the greater story arc.**

**Disclaimer: Still don't own these characters.**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Xander clung as tight as he dared to Rand as the other man guided his bike across a seemingly endless, nigh on featureless expanse of scorching desert. He wasn't really paying attention to the scenery, or the searing heat of the sun beating down on them from a heat bleached sky, instead he was preoccupied with mentally going over everything that the wisecracking Argentinean had told him last night.

They'd talked for hours in that cave, Rand sharing some salted fish he didn't recognise that he'd traded with some of the coastal towns with him over a small fire. Well mostly Rand had talked filling him in on everything that had happened over the last forty-three years, all the horrors that mankind had been put through over the last thirty odd especially. He kept lingering on the Rain of Death and the inconceivable scale of devastation that a race of bioengineered literal giants called the Zentraedi had wrought with that one bombardment. When Rand had first told him about it he hadn't known whether to scream in denial or be sick from the absolute horror of it.

_At least I know now what likely killed off the Slayer potentials,_ he thought guessing that most of the girls with the potential to become The Slayer had been killed in the bombardment as the vast majority of humankind lived in large towns and cities and had done for centuries. Towns and cities which had been utterly obliterated when reflex cannon blasts landed in them with forces greater than any nuclear bomb they'd ever set off during the Cold War years. He didn't know what he was supposed to do about it though; what could one man do against a fleet of four point eight million warships and a few billion fifty to sixty foot tall humanoids?

"You're still thinking about it aren't you," Rand abruptly said from in front of him, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah," Xander admitted, "it's not every day you hear about a genocide on that scale. Especially as it likely killed all the potentials."

"Potentials" Rand asked hearing the capital letter in that name "potentials for what?"

"Have you ever heard of the Slayer, Rand," Xander asked guessing that his saviour turned travelling companion/guide to this time had not really heard of the Vampire Slayer.

"I've heard the odd fang face mention the Slayer from time to time," Rand admitted frowning slightly, but knowing Xander currently couldn't see it, as he wondered just where this was going. "I just assumed it was a legend, some demonic bogeyman that vampires use to frighten unruly members of their undead clique into behaving."

"I suppose that's all she is now," Xander admitted. "But the Slayer is, or was, real, Rand. The spiel goes that 'into every generation there is a Chosen One; she alone will have the strength to fight against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer'. They're usually girls between fourteen and twenty-one years of age when they're called by some higher power to be the new Slayer. In the four years I've been fighting vampires and demons I've known three of them."

"They have that short a lifespan," Rand asked horrified at the implications and wondering what higher being or whatever could chose such young girls for such a horrible mission.

"Most don't live more than a year. Though I've known one that's lived for five years thanks to me, my friends and the fact that I revived her with CPR after a particularly nasty master vampire – called unimaginatively The Master – drowned her to fulfil a prophecy. As a result the one girl in all the world thing became two girls in all the world as Buffy retained her Slayer powers after being revived."

"That's a weird name, Buffy."

"It is a bit," Xander admitted, he remembered wondering just what Joyce had been thinking when she'd named her daughter that. At least until he'd asked her once and found out that it was a nickname Buffy had gotten in kindergarten that had stuck ever since, just like how everyone knew him as Xander when his actual name was Alexander. "It's a nickname she picked up in kindergarten Buffy's real first name is Elizabeth. But as I was saying there is a whole network of girls out there – at least there were in my time – that have the potential to be become the Slayer upon the death of the previous Slayer. They likely all died in the rain so when Buffy or Faith – the two current Slayers in my time – died there would be nobody to inherit that heaviest of mantles thus no one to stop the Old Ones when they return."

"So you now know what probably caused the end of the Slayers," Rand summarised. "The question now is what causes this Hellmouth you told me about to rupture a year or so from now? Any idea how were going to figure that one out?"

"Nope," Xander sighed. "We have to figure it out but how we go about doing that…I haven't the foggiest. Of course these Invid you told me about are probably going to make finding answers even harder than it would have otherwise been."

"I don't doubt they will, they do have a knack for making people's lives difficult" Rand agreed as he guided the bike up a steep incline onto a more rocky area of the desert and blinked at what he saw a few hundred feet away from their current location. "Whoa," he said bringing the bike to a stop as he examined the find.

Sitting there on the desert floor, rock and sand piled up around it from where it had ploughed through, was a Robotech transport ship. Eyes experienced in the art of salvage told Rand that the wreck was relatively new the fact that it hadn't already been buried was proof of that as large sandstorms were quite common in this area at this time of year and would certainly have buried the vessel if it had been here more than a few months. It also didn't appear to have been disturbed.

"What is that," Xander asked looking over Rand's shoulder and seeing what was clearly a downed spacecraft whose design somewhat reminded him somewhat of a Klingon battlecruiser from Star Trek, though it was more angular and lacked warp nacelles.

"A golden salvage opportunity; it's a Robotech military transport ship, the Invid must have shot it down," Rand replied as he started up the bike again and headed right for the downed vessel. "We should find some interesting things here to barter when we reach Lake Town." _We might even find some protoculture energy cells,_ he thought knowing from experience that finding those intact were rare but they were always extremely valuable when you did find them, especially given how stingy the Invid could sometimes be with their energy cell rations. Somebody in Lake Town – or any other town they came across in their travels – would certainly want them and be willing to offer valuable supplies or even gold in exchange. Plus, since there were now two of them, it might be an idea to raid its emergency lockers for things like tents, medical packs and emergency rations as they'd be a useful, if not the most palatable, supplement to their food supplies.

In moments he was pulling up next to one of the downed crafts wings. "Come on," he said to his travelling companion as he hopped off the bike and extended the pedal so it wouldn't fall over. Xander nodded and climbed off the bike himself before following Rand as he advanced cautiously but optimistically towards the side of the downed ship.

"Here," Rand called back to him as the shorter man came upon a hatch that looked like it had sprung open when the ship had crashed. The metal pins that would normally have held it shut having the characteristic crumpled and torn apart look of impact damage, as opposed to the smooth edged look of energy weapons fire inflicted damage.

"Let's head in," Rand said as Xander joined him. Xander nodded and watched as Rand took a small windup flashlight from a pouch on his belt wound it a few times before switching it on, then leading the way inside the crashed vessel.

Xander couldn't help the slight sigh of relief that escaped his lips as they stepped into the interior of the vessel as it was noticeably cooler than the desert outside, the insulation lining the hull preventing the ships internal temperature rising to any appreciable degree. "Cooler in here," he said needlessly and blinked as he noticed that some lights inside the vessel still seemed to be on, turning what would have been a completely black interior into a dimly lit interior. "There's still power."

"They're emergency lights, running of built in power cells," Rand explained as he turned off his torch, "they certainly activated when the ship crashed and lost main power. I've salvaged from ships like this before and seen it before."

"Okay so which way?"

"This way," Rand said pointing off to the right "if I remember correctly one of the cargo bays should be that way. We're more likely to find something worth salvaging in there."

"Alright lead on."

Rand nodded and led the way deeper into the ship, their footsteps echoing in the dead and silent corridors. It was kind of creepy moving through the twilight filled corridors like this, corridors that once would have probably been filled with life as the crew moved about their duties. _Almost like walking through a graveyard at night,_ Xander thought infinitely familiar with the creepy feeling of the dead and silent ship. It really was like walking through the many cemeteries of Sunnydale; patrolling for newly rising vampires and very rarely said fledgling's sire. He wondered briefly what that said about his life that he was so used to skulking about in graveyards. He put aside those thoughts as they came upon an open door leading into one of the ship's cargo bays.

_Now to see if there is anything of value left intact inside this junk heap,_ Rand thought as he led the way into the bay which, like the rest of the ships interior, was still being palely illuminated by the emergency battery lights. He gasped at what he saw, then smiled as he realised he'd kind of hit the jackpot.

"What is it," Xander asked hearing the gasp and looking curiously over the other man's shoulder, and frowning at what he saw "motorbikes? Why would a military transport ship be carrying so many motorbikes?"

"Because they're much more than that," Rand replied, "they're veritech Cyclones."

"Veri-what?"

Rand blinked then mentally kicked himself, given the time he came from it was understandable that Xander wouldn't recognise the term veritech. Indeed the term hadn't even been invented in his time, not coming about until the mid-two thousands when the first veritech fighters – the Valkyrie if he remembered the name correctly – entered service.

"Veritech it's a product of robotechnology," he explained, "one specially applied to mecha like these Cyclones. It means they can change form and function, for example veritech fighters can change between a fighter plane and a giant battle robot called a battloid."

"Really?" Xander asked trying to wrap his head around the very idea that there were machines that could do that in existence now. How the hell was that possible? He wondered if it could be a form of techno-magic like some of the magic's Ms Calendar had practiced before her death at the hands of Angelus. He'd certainly seen conventional magic change one thing into another often enough, Amy had been especially good at transformation magic's well before she'd somehow gotten herself stuck as a black rat after a panicked spell cast during the MOO incident. If normal magic could perform those kinds of transformations then why couldn't techno-magic?

"Yes really."

"Whoa. It's not techno-magic is it?" Xander asked "the reason I ask is me and magic don't tend to get on very well."

"Nah it's not magic," Rand replied, "it can seem like it though but as that old saying goes 'any sufficiently advanced technology…'"

"…is indistinguishable from magic," Xander finished knowing the quote well. It had been one of Jesse's favourites to quote, especially when they'd gotten into geek fuelled debates/arguments with the likes of Andrew, Jonathan and Warren. "So now what?"

"We take at least one of them with us," Rand replied, "It will give you something to ride as my bike is not really designed for two people. Hell I'll probably take one for myself. As for the rest well we can take the protoculture energy cells out, they're worth a lot on the black market given how stingy the Invid can be with them. Come on let's put some of these back out in the corridor and start checking some of the other bays."

"Alright," Xander agreed with a nod, trusting Rand knew what he was doing and that this wouldn't ultimately turn around and bite them in the ass, before moving towards the rank of Cyclones. He carefully began looking them over, eyes drinking in the sleek lines that spoke of a perfect marriage of aesthetic elegance, functionality and power.

He noticed that the bikes seemed to come in three different types with the front wheel hubcaps being the biggest difference between two of them. One had what looked like some kind of cannon mounted on one side, the other on each side appeared to have two small tubes that – to his soldier memories – looked like either some kind of grenade or missile launchers. The third was slightly bigger and the front hubcaps had three of the grenade or missile launchers on each side, it was also a dark blue in colour in comparison to the olive grey and white colouration of the others with an orange tinted windshield.

It was also the one that seemed to call to him.

Trusting his instincts, they'd never steered him wrong yet, he walked right up to the closest of that type and looked it over more thoroughly before smiling. "I'll take this one," he said prompting Rand to look over at him from where he was checking out one of the others.

"Nice," the other man replied with a whistle "come on let's get these out in the corridor and carry on looking there is bound to be more to this bay than some stored Cyclones."

Xander nodded back and carefully began manoeuvring the bike, to his surprise it freewheeled quite easily, first to the entrance to the bay and then out into the corridor. Rand followed a few paces behind him with one of the others, his being one of the ones with a small cannon mounted on the front right hubcap.

They had just deployed the legs so the bikes wouldn't fall over and were turning to return to the bay when the deck beneath them suddenly shook. "What the hell," Xander exclaimed stumbling.

"Earthquake?" Rand suggested.

"That was no earthquake. Trust me I'm Californian we're used to them and that was like no quake I've ever felt," Xander replied as the deck shook again this time there was a distinct shriek of tearing metal.

"We're being attacked," Rand said in sudden realisation as the deck shook again and there came additional sounds of metal tearing, sounding to Xander almost like something was clawing at the metal skin of the ship and steadily ripping the already compromised hull apart. "Shit it must be an Invid patrol. They must have picked up the power emissions of the lights. Get on your bike we need to get out of here before they literally rip the ship apart."

Xander nodded and hurriedly climbed aboard the Cyclone he'd chosen for himself. _Now how do you start this thing,_ he thought scanning the controls, hoping he didn't have to basically hotwire it to get the engine to start as he wouldn't have the faintest idea where to begin doing that as he doubted it was as easy as they made it look on TV. Somewhat to his own surprise he quickly found a button to start the machine which, after mentally crossing his fingers, he quickly pressed.

Immediately the Cyclone came to life with an odd rumbling humming instead of the throaty roar he had half expected it to have. _Oh yeah different type of engine,_ he thought as he kicked up the leg and balanced as well as he could as the ship was shaking nearly constantly now – the sounds of metal tearing and snapping as it was being ripped apart by some immensely powerful force getting louder and louder.

"Okay let's get out of here," Rand said gunning his own Cyclones engine to life before shooting off down the corridor. Xander followed close behind. In seconds they were shooting back out the broken hatch into the open air.

Directly ahead of them Rand's original bike lay smashed and broken as though something massive had crushed, thin lines of grey smoke rose from the bike as its electronics burned within the crumpled remains.

"Oh man I liked that bike," Rand moaned as he saw the wreckage before the familiar sound of Invid thrusters firing caught his attention. He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes widened as he saw three Invid troopers. Despite having expected to see them the sight still sent a shiver of fear down his spine as he was well aware what would happen to them if the Invid caught them. "Xander go," he yelled to his new friend.

Xander nodded and gunned his engine for more power shooting away across the rocky surface of the desert plateau. Rand appeared next to him and the two of them drove hard across the desert the sound of engines above and behind them letting them both know they were being chased. Risking a glance over his shoulder Xander's eyes widened when he saw there pursuers, which could only be Invid.

They were like nothing he had ever seen before. Three large purple coloured machines that looked vaguely like someone had crossed a crab with a gorilla and then clad them both in a metallic armour whose opalescent sheen made it look more like the hard carapace of some kind of insect than any metallic alloy he knew of. _Ugly as hell I've known demons with a better sense of aesthetics than these Invid,_ he thought as the three machines chased them, the thrusters on their backs spewing purple tinted jet exhaust as they powered through the air after them. He honestly didn't understand how the damned things could fly as they didn't appear to have any aerodynamic properties whatsoever.

He pushed aside those thoughts and looked towards the horizon, concentrating on his driving as the rocky plateau gave to sandy hills. He could faintly hear Rand taunting the Invid machines – something about them letting him know if they were getting tired – that brought an amused smirk to his face. After a few moments he spotted a dust plume coming towards them, clearly being produced by another machine.

"Rand look," he called out nodding into the distance.

"Oh no these goons are coming from everywhere," Rand exclaimed following Xander's eye line to see the approaching dust plume. He began frantically searching for a way out of this apparent trap for both of them as he had no intention of becoming an unpaid tenant on an Invid protoculture farm. He knew that Xander wouldn't want that fate either, as it would kind of put an end to his own mission of finding out what causes the world to end.

It was at that moment that the approaching vehicle revealed itself to not be a converging group of Invid troopers or enforcers. Instead it was another Cyclone and there was somebody riding it. No sooner than he realised that than the Cyclone pulled its front wheel off the ground and with a flash of thrusters shot into the air, before breaking apart and reforming around its now standing rider transforming from a high powered Robotech motorcycle into a battle armour that made the wearer look like a vastly scaled down, but still extremely well-armed and thus very dangerous, version of a battloid. Despite having read about it this was the first time he had ever actually seen the near miraculous robotechnology process called mechamorphosis happen.

It was as incredible as he'd imagined it would be.

He was so shocked by actually seeing it for the first time that he neglected to pay attention to precisely where he was going. As he result he didn't notice the large rock sticking out of the sandy ground until his Cyclones front wheel struck it and sent him spinning across the ground out of control. _Ow, ow, ow,_ he thought as he came to a dazed stop his wounded pride at getting knocked flying like that hurting more than the bruises and scrapes he'd certainly picked up would.

"Rand are you alright," Xander asked coming to a stop beside him even as the transformed Cyclone and its rider landed between them and the Invid.

"It's okay friends I'll take it from here," a strangely accented male voice as the newcomer raised an arm, trained it on one of the landing Invid troopers and unleashed a single small missile.

The targeted Invid trooper took the Scorpion micro-missile right on its most vulnerable point… the sensor eye. The missile punching right through to the pilots compartment killing the Stage-II Invid pilot instantly even before the 4kg plasma explosive warhead detonated ripping the Invid mecha apart and sending smoke and shrapnel flying in all directions.

"Whoa," Xander breathed surprised by the fact that such a small projectile could trigger such a large explosion. _Must be some descendant of the rocket launcher I swiped off the army so Buffy could blow the Atomic Smurf into a million steaming bits,_ he thought _the firepower though damn. What the hell kind of warhead are those micro-missiles packing?_ Somehow he doubted it was C4 or any other kind of explosive that he was familiar with. He watched with interest to see what happened next.

The sudden destruction of their compatriot seemed to have caught the Invid off guard. Now the remaining two machines and the battle armoured man were staring at each other. "Well you sure are ugly," the man said again speaking with an accent unlike anything Xander had ever heard in his life before though its clipped, professional cadence reminded him somewhat of Giles when he was in full on 'stuffy Brit' mode. "Now it's time to see if you can fight."

The Invid obviously did not appreciate the taunting any more than the vamps in Sunnydale appreciated it when Buffy taunted them. One of them swiped at the armoured stranger with one huge three clawed metal hand only for the stranger to effortlessly dodge and shoot straight up into the air with a burst of thruster power remaining airborne long enough to lose another pair of missiles – which rapidly sent another of the Invid machines to its doom in a massive, fiery explosion. The stranger landed and immediately rolled to avoid a swipe from the claws of the last of the Invid machines.

Getting back to his feet the stranger leaped upwards and landing on top of the machine with an agility that was as impressive as it was seemingly completely effortless. "Here I am, you really need glasses," the man said in a very taunting tone of voice as he leaped down just avoiding another claw swipe as the Invid pilot continued its attempts to hit him. Xander couldn't help but chuckle at the taunting. _This guy would so get on with Buffy,_ he thought as the stranger apparently decided to stop toying with the last Invid and launched a final missile turning the last machine into flames and debris.

The Invid defeated, for the time being at least, the armoured stranger advanced took a few steps towards them – his armoured feet producing a metallic clanking noise that immediately put Xander in mind of the Jaffa from Stargate, especially how columns would make a loud metallic clanking as they approached – before coming to a halt and seemingly regarding both of them for a minute. Looking up Xander tried to guess what the stranger was thinking or feeling from looking at his face, only to find that the blue translucent visor of the helmet made his features to indistinct to make out the fine details he needed to read his expressions.

For a few moments a strange semi-standoff occurred and both Xander and Rand got the distinct impression that the armoured mad was studying them. Then the man spoke, again speaking with that odd clipped accent. "Not so tough are they partners," the stranger said.

As the words registered Xander couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

**A Few Moments Earlier**

Lieutenant Commander Scott Bernard smiled grimly as the last of his immediate supply of Scorpion micro-missiles claimed the last of the Invid patrol, reducing the mecha – and the protoplasmic slug-like alien within it – to a pile of scorched and smouldering debris. Killing these three Invid wasn't much of a vengeance against the Invid for killing his beloved Marlene and the rest of the Mars Division but it was a start at least. The greater debt, owed not just to him for his fiancée's death but to all of humanity for annexing their homeworld, was still to be paid and paid in full by the Regis and her Invid hoard. And he would do his best to carry out Admiral Hunter's orders and take out the Regis and Reflex Point so the rest of the expeditionary force, when it came as it surely would, could boot the extremely unwelcome Invid squatters off their home.

He just had to find his way to Reflex Point first. Something that was, quite frankly, easier said than done. Terran geography – and indeed geography in general – had never been his strongest subject. That combined with the fact that the Invid had shot down all the navigation satellites put up to replace the old GPS – lost during the Rain of Death as particle beams, lasers and satellites didn't tend to get on that well – network meant he was quite frankly somewhat… well… lost.

_Maybe these people I just saved will be able to give me some directions,_ he thought turning to the two Cyclone riders whom he'd just rescued. It was immediately obvious to him that neither of them was a soldier, though the solidly built black-haired man had an odd almost quasi-military air to him, but were in fact civilians. Civilians who'd presumably salvaged the Cyclones they were riding either from a downed ship or from an old RDF or ASC supply base that had somehow escaped being immolated by the Invid. From the models – a Battler like his own but mounting a EM-40 proton cannon instead of Scorpions and a Devastator – and the fact that they gleamed as if brand new he was willing to bet the Cyclones origins were the former rather than the latter.

A part of him wasn't happy about it but thinking about it he honestly couldn't blame them for salvaging the Cyclones – though they obviously lacked CVR armour of any mark so they wouldn't be able to shift to armour mode – as life under Invid domination wasn't easy. As a dozen races across huge swathes of the galaxy could attest, as such you likely took whatever advantage you could to survive and retain some semblance of control over your own fate. If the Cyclones gave them that advantage then it was only fair that they use it. _Maybe I can get them to tell me where they got them,_ he thought, _go back there with them and help them find some CVR armour then show them how to use battle armour mode. In exchange they can point me roughly in the direction of Reflex Point._

Deciding he wasn't going to learn anything from them, or get them to trust him, if he continued doing the big silent type thing he spoke up. "Not so tough are they partners," he said a faint smirk on his lips though they naturally couldn't see it through his visor. To his surprise the black haired one, the one riding the Devastator, laughed.

It was an infectious sound and before he even realised it Scott found himself smiling back. His amusement only grew when the redhead looked at his companion like he was crazy for laughing at a time like this.

"You could say that, you certainly took care of them quickly enough," the dark haired civilian replied.

"He's right. You're something else in a battle man," the red haired one added as he pushed his own Cyclone back upright.

Scott was flattered by the praise but decided to set them straight a bit. After all he wasn't one for accepting praise when it wasn't due, between them his parents and Uncle Emil had made sure of that. He calmly flipped up the visor of his helmet. "It's really the Cyclone," he explained.

"They're quite a rig," the red haired civilian agreed squatting down and beginning to examine his Cyclone for damage. There wouldn't be Scott knew, the alloy that Cyclones were made out of was capable of withstanding far more pounding than a skid across the desert floor.

"They are quite impressive," he admitted in agreement as the Cyclone was almost as versatile as an Alpha fighter, though naturally seriously under gunned in comparison to an Alpha, and was a hell of a lot easier to use. "Maybe you can help me," he added getting down to business.

"If we can," Xander replied, "I'm Xander by the way and he's Rand."

"Hi," Rand said in greeting without looking up.

"Lieutenant Commander Scott Bernard," Scott answered.

"Nice to meet you, Commander Bernard," Xander replied "how can we help you?"

"Can you possibly tell me how to get to the Invid hive at Reflex Point," Scott asked.

"Reflex Point why the hell do you want to go there," Rand asked, even he had heard about the massive Invid hive complex at Reflex Point, itself built on top of the bulldozed ruins of New Macross City.

"I have to destroy it or at very least kill the Invid Queen the Regis before Admiral Hunter gets here with the rest of the Expeditionary |Force," Scott replied. "Then we'll be able to boot the Invid off our planet and send them back to that barren rock they came from."

"Sounds like a suicide mission," Rand commented frowning at the armour wearing man.

"If that's what it takes," Scott answered before kneeling down and giving the command for his Cyclone to disengage from armour mode. If was to have even a semi-serious conversation with Xander and Rand he would rather be able to look them in the eye than them having to look up at him. In seconds the Cyclone disengaged and he stood up, before pulling the Cyclone upright as a robotech motorcycle once again.

"Mars Division, the fleet I was attached to was assigned to attack and destroy Reflex Point by orbital bombardment allowing ground forces to be landed," he continued, "but the Invid orbital forces proved far more numerous and far more persistent than anything we've ever encountered from them before. It didn't seem to matter how many of their carriers and battle mecha we destroyed – and we destroyed dozens of the former and thousands of the latter – more came or launched. They overpowered us… as far as I know I'm the only one left alive.

"But our orders stand. I'm alive so I must continue with my mission, if doing so costs me my life… well so be it," he continued slipping off his helmet, only for it to catch on the lanyard around his neck and yank it – and the message trinket attached to it - free. The green and black heart shaped trinket landing on the floor and opening prompting a six-inch tall hologram of Marlene to appear in the air.

"Scott my darling I know this isn't much," the recorded image of Lieutenant Marlene Rush said naturally unaware that the sound of her voice drove like a knife into Scott's heart, "but I want you to know that I love you and that yes I will marry you. Take care my darling, I love you."

The recording ended and the hologram dissipated, the locket automatically closing. "Marlene," Scott said softly as he picked it up before turning away mind again seeing the Horizon-T dropship she was crew of breaking apart under the friction of an uncontrolled entry into the atmosphere, the dropship unable to pull out into a safe entry vector due to damage to its control surfaces. Feeling his eyes begin to burn with unshed tears he angrily tried to push the emotions away. He couldn't give into the grief, much as he wanted to just breakdown and cry he couldn't, not now, not yet. He had a mission to complete there would be time to grieve later.

"Was that your girl," Rand asked softly from behind him.

"Yeah," Scott replied equally softly, his own voice shaking with the emotions that wanted to break through, "my girl. She died in the battle."

Finally succeeding in pushing the emotions down, locking them away behind iron self-control for now at least, Scott slipped the lanyard – and its precious cargo, his last link to Marlene at least till he got back to Tirol and could see young Marcus – back on making a mental note to make sure it was under his chest armour next time as he didn't want to lose it. Then he turned back around to face Xander and Rand.

"I'm sorry," Xander consoled softly, though the soldier was hiding it he could see the raw emotional pain in his blue eyes being only just kept in check by a combination of military discipline and a will of iron. He'd seen that look before, in his own eyes after Jesse was killed and turned forcing him to stake the demon wearing the face of he who had been his brother in everything but blood. "We'll do all we can to help you, won't we Rand? Though I honestly do not know the way to Reflex Point."

"Sure we will," Rand agreed throwing a slightly questioning look at Xander wondering why the other man was offering to help Commander Bernard with his mission. He had his own mission after all. He made a mental note to ask him later when they could get some time alone as he doubted the soldier from space knew about, and would accept that, the supernatural world was real. "I have no idea exactly how to get there but I do know Reflex Point is north of here," he continued looking back at Scott, "tens of thousands of miles to the north. You got a long way to go my friend."

"Tell me about it," Scott agreed knowing long way was an understatement as there were a lot of obstacles between him and Reflex Point no doubt ranging from natural barriers like the Amazon rainforest and the Caribbean to the obstacles of a world in chaos. "And thanks."

"Your welcome," Rand replied, "so now what?"

"Well first thing you tell me where'd you two get those Cyclones? They look brand new."

"Oh we salvaged them from one of the cargo holds of a downed transport ship a few miles back," Rand replied, "we didn't get a chance to salvage much else before that patrol of Invid troopers showed up and started ripping the ship up."

"Then we really need to head back there and recover what we can before more Invid show up," Scott replied, "I need more Scorpions and if you two are really going to use those Cyclones then you need a few things."

"Like?" Xander queried.

"Like CVR armour like this," Scott replied tapping the hard body armour he was wearing over his flight suit, "you can't operate armour mode without it. And don't worry I'll teach you how to use it it's not difficult. Spare power cells, hand weapons and general supplies would also do us well as I only have my emergency survival kit and that won't last very long. Any idea how long till more Invid show up?"

"Probably not for a while," Rand replied, "patrols over the desert regions tend to be very sporadic. It will be awhile before the Invid will be able to spare more troopers."

"Good we have a chance then. Which way's the ship?"

"We can lead you there can't we Xander," Rand replied climbing back onto his Cyclone and turning it back in the direction they'd just come from.

"Sure," Xander agreed as he turned his own machine around.

"Then let's go," Scott answered as he quickly picked up the side boxes that had automatically detached from his Cyclone when he switched to battle armour and re-secured them to the Cyclone before hopping on himself and turning the bike in the same direction as the other two. "Lead on then."

Rand and Xander both nodded and brought there Cyclones to life again. Scott did the same and with a rumble of engines that echoed off the dunes and rocky outcrops the unlikely trio set off, heading back to the transport and whatever salvage they could gain. And in the process taking their first steps on an adventure that would change all of them in ways they could not yet imagine.

* * *

**Authors Note: Well another chapter bites the proverbial dust. I was originally going to put a scene with Buffy and the other Scoobies back in Sunnydale at the end of this chapter but as I started to write it, it felt a bit extraneous and tacked on so I removed it. I hope no one minds. I have also altered quite a bit of the dialogue from New Generation for this chapter as it wasn't the best to be honest, again I hope nobody minds.**

**Author Note (16/08/2015): It has been brought to my attention that Elizabeth being Buffy's real first name is purely fanon in origin. I was unaware of this but then it has been a few months since I watched any episodes of the TV show. While I acknowledge the fanon nature of the name Elizabeth I will be continuing to use it though its not likely to be mentioned openly by any of the story characters again. I hope nobody minds too much. **

Author Note (16/08/2015): It has been brought to my attention that Elizabeth being Buffy's real first name is purely fanon in origin. I was unaware of this but then it has been a few months since I watched any episodes of the TV show. While I acknowledge the fanon nature of the name Elizabeth I will be continuing to use it though its not likely to be mentioned openly by any of the story characters again. I hope nobody minds too much.

Author Note (16/08/2015): It has been brought to my attention that Elizabeth being Buffy's real first name is purely fanon in origin. I was unaware of this but then it has been a few months since I watched any episodes of the TV show. While I acknowledge the fanon nature of the name Elizabeth I will be continuing to use it though its not likely to be mentioned openly by any of the story characters again. I hope nobody minds too much.


End file.
